New Shawty On the Block
by theNEWanias
Summary: They say that there's a complex: he only wants it if he can't have it. But what if he's not alone? Vince/OFC. r&r, please.
1. Chapter 1

It was entirely possible that they'd seen each other before. In fact, it was more than possible; it was probably true. A sidestep on the boardwalk; an adjacent seat on the subway; a shared bench in Central Park. After all, New Jersey was New York's backyard, was it not? Then again, maybe they'd never even crossed the same street. Queens and Brick Town weren't exactly next-door neighbors.

But it didn't matter, did it? Even if they _had _once passed each other by, they would've been just kids. They wouldn't recognize one another now. They'd never know. And maybe, all circumstances considered, that was for the best.

* * *

Peyton. It was an odd name, even odder that she had chosen it to get away from a stranger name. But then, she _had_ spent eighteen years sharing the name of a place on a map. In fact, it had always struck her as odd that her mother had named her after a country – a county she had never even been to, by the way. More to the point, Peyton was rather confident in saying that her mother knew nothing _about_ aforementioned country aside from the fact that curry was a popular dish and that there were elephants there.

What had possessed her mother to name her so?

"_I figured that since no one can rhyme it with anything_," she'd said, "_you can't be made fun of_."

Okay.

But anyway. Peyton stood in front of a mirror in an apartment she could hardly afford, assessing her hair with a certain amount of dismay. California had not been kind to her hair. It had made it monstrous and frizzy so that it required the discipline of a flat-iron that had never before beleaguered her.

But today, at least it looked nice.

_No_, she decided, _I look like a crack addict_. But the truth of the matter was that even if she had been changed by this strange state and its even stranger inhabitants, she did not really look like a crack addict.

Why had Mike insisted on conducting rehearsals on the beach? Mike was the director of the film Peyton was starring in. Well, co-starring, really. She was sharing the spotlight, which was fine with her. Even finer with her was the fact that she would be acting alongside Vincent Chase, as this was to be his 'back in the game' movie.

She hoped to do him justice.

Winding slowly through the sluggish and barbaric L.A. traffic, Peyton chewed impatiently on her gum, snapping it harshly in the afternoon heat. When spaces in the endless line of cars opened up, she took them; when people honked and swore at her, she ignored them. She was a Jersey Girl and she drove like one: badly and without apology. She knew that between the clogged artery of the PCH and her complete lack of navigational skills, she would most likely be late for rehearsal.

What beach had Mike specified? _Had_ he specified? No, she rather doubted that. Mike was very typical beach-bum. He was thirty-four and had a sandy, receding hairline and loose board shorts. She suspected that he thought he could surf.

Peyton pulled into the closest beach lot and murdered her parking job before climbing out of the junky Nissan and burning her feet on the tar. As she approached the shoreline, it was clear that she had the right beach: women were sitting on blankets in designer velor sweat suits and teased hair.

"Sorry I'm late," Peyton called across the dunes, waving to everyone. Her beach bag swung by her side and she felt suddenly self-conscious at the fact that she was wearing an actual bathing suit. How comically, delightfully ironic. Several men looked up and smiled, that winning sort of Hollywood smile. But of course, there was one smile that came in first place.

Vince, friendly as could be, waved her down. But then, she knew all about him. She'd read _Ok!_ and she'd heard the stories. Vince was a whore, but goddamn it, he was beautiful. She'd play it kinda' safe.

"You're not that late," he said playfully.

Without a word, she sat down beside him on the sand, no towel necessary. She couldn't help but note the look of discomfort and uncertainty that had emerged on his face at her lack of response. If she was going to work with him, she would have to play the resistance card.

"Okay people," Mike called over the roar of the ocean, "now that our leading lady's here, let's get the ball rolling!" He was an optimist type, Peyton decided, a glass-half full. She dug through her bag, overturning her makeup and her cell phone (out of minutes, she noticed), finally pulling out the script the producers had mailed to her. It was already crumpled and rolled, used and lovingly abused. She'd read and studied the entire text religiously, ensuring that she wouldn't forget a thing.

"Wow," Vince said softly, glancing her script, "you really went over that thing, didn't you?"

"Mm-hmm," she hummed casually. Inside though, she was bubbling over with joy: _he spoke to me, he spoke to me_! Vincent Chase had been one of her late teenage crushes: he'd decorated her walls for almost four years; he'd been the center of her fantasies and her daydreams, as well as countless poems that had kept up her third trimester English grade since sophomore year.

Vince just licked his lips and looked away, clearly discouraged.

_Maybe after the movie wraps_, she thought remorsefully, knowing how quickly Vince would move on.

They started with an end scene – one they would begin shooting the next day. It wasn't so climactic as it was frustrating, and Peyton vaguely wondered if she would even want to go to the premier by the end.

Ten more rehearsal scenes later and they were finally done. Vince ran up beside Peyton and caught her elbow. "Hey, you did real good," he said.

"Really?" Peyton couldn't stop the note of happy surprise. "Thanks." She worked to keep down her excitement and sound casual, like it was everyday that one of her favorite movie stars complemented her on her reading.

"Yeah." his voice was smooth and confident. "But you could still use a few tips. Maybe we could grab a cup of coffee sometime? You could bring your script." Under any other circumstances, it would have been a sweet, even friendly gesture. But as things stood, he was the idolized film star and she was the starving, aspiring actress.

"Maybe," she replied, making sure not to give him eye contact. "I'm busy," no she wasn't, "but I'll think about it."

The look of shock on his face was enough to make her day, even if she _was_ ten days late on her rent.

* * *

So she didn't go for coffee with Vince. Instead, she forced the coffee (and Vince) to come to her. Peyton was a seasoned flirt, and she knew not to expect much of a guy like Vince, and she knew she ought to play hard-to-get.

"You know," Vince said during a break one day, "it's going to be difficult to act like you're in love with me if you really don't like me." His stance was defensive and frustrated. It was amusing, but not where she wanted him to be. It was probably time to let him know that she was comfortable with him.

"There's a reason they call it acting," she said coyly, accepting the coffee, "but I do like you." She took a sip and winced. He got her hazelnut. She _hated_ hazelnut.

Vince noticed her wince after another sip or so. "You don't like it, do you."

"Nah," she said, some Jersey working its way in there, "I like my coffee like liquid candy."

Vince had to work to stifle the laughter.

"I don't like the coffee," she repeated, "but I like you. I love your movies, especially _Queens Boulevard_." She knew she was opening the doors a little wider, but hey. There's a line between 'hard-to-get' and just plain cold.

"I've seen your stuff too," he said. "You're good."

"You've seen my films?" she asked, incredulous and unable to contain it. "Which ones?"

Vince smiled big. "All of them."

"Well what did you think?" she asked. Nervously, she lifted her fingers to her lips as though she had a cigarette, though she'd kicked that habit at sixteen. She'd only been in three films, and only one lead role.

"As a movie," Vince said very analytically, teasing her, "I really liked _Dumping You_." That had been her first shared role. "I saw the trailer and I totally thought it was gonna' be a chick flick, but it was actually really hilarious." He chuckled for her benefit. "Kind of Seth Rogen in a way."

"Yeah, that's why I liked it," she said. She was trying to remember all the things she'd learned about body language in Cosmo. _Tilt your head,_ she thought anxiously, _don't cross your arms_.

"But I think your best performance was in _Sickly. _That movie was _intense_."

That had been her lead role. "Yeah," she spoke pensively, remembering her preparation for her role as Lindsey, a drug-addled fifteen-year-old with a bad anger problem. It had been a role she could sort of relate to. "Well...it _was_ intense. I almost quit the role," she said.

"I can understand that, but I'm glad you didn't. It was a good movie."

"Makeup, people, makeup!" Mike's assistant, Carl was shouting, waving his arms frantically.

"I guess we should probably get going,huh?" Peyton said. She was speaking softly, flirtatiously. She let it slide.

"Yeah, probably." Vince touched her shoulder. "Hey, let me take you out for coffee tonight so I can get something you like." He looked genuinely pleading.

"Alright. I didn't take my car today, so you'll have to give me a ride home."

"I can do that," Vince said, hoping that he wouldn't have to parallel park.

"Okay. See you in a few." Peyton waved as she walked into Marc-the-makeup-artist's trailer. She sat down in front of the mirror and heaved a sigh.

"Looks like you're finally hitting it off with your costar," Marc said to her, a wily smile appearing on his face.

"Vince is taking me for coffee later. We're going to go over the script." She fought for casualness, and she thought she was doing pretty well.

"Sure you are, sugar." Marc fluttered some blush over her cheeks and toyed with his lip ring as he spoke.

Peyton got the feeling that she was being mocked.

* * *

Peyton fought to uncurl her fingers from the edges of her seat in Vince's Escalade once he'd parked outside her building. "Sorry," was his chuckled apology, "I only just got my license."

"How?" she asked. She wasn't really joking, but he laughed anyway.

"Premier tickets," he answered seriously.

"God," she sighed. They laughed for a minute, and then Peyton found her breath. "Um, do you wanna' come up for a minute or two?" she asked. She knew that, classically, it was a risky invitation, but she wasn't interested in giving Vince everything right when they were starting a picture together.

"Sure," he said, excited. He was taking the classic implications.

They got out of the car and walked up through the building. Vince observed, as they traversed the never-ending staircase, that the walls were chipped and the floors were in desperate need of repair. It reminded him of home.

"Your walk-up is..." he paused.

"Shitty?" she supplied, unfazed.

Vince chuckled. "I was gonna' say 'unique,' but yeah, shitty is a good word.'

"I'm on the fifth floor," she warned him.

"I've walked worse," he insisted. He followed her into her studio, surveying the complete lack of personality. "There's not much here," he mentioned. There were a few crates lying around, mostly as coffee and end tables. There was a crack in the stove.

"I'm not getting my security deposit back," she said, "and hey, I'm not living here for the rest of my life. This is just for the movie."

"Where will you go when we're done shooting?" he asked, confused by her indifference to permanence.

"I don't know yet," she answered, the picture of nonchalance. "I'll probably just go home to my mom until I find another job."

"You're going to live with your mother after the movie wraps? Why?" It was a valid question; this was a big-budget film and the paychecks would be fat, even down to the last caterer.

"Well," she was digging through her refrigerator. It looked to Vince that there wasn't much there. "I'm still paying off a few debts, so...I've got a while before I'm landing an episode of Cribs." She emerged from the fridge with a box of strawberries. She enveloped one between her lips and sucked on it before biting. "Want one?" she proffered.

"Uh...no thanks." Vince tried hard to ignore the stirring of blood heading south.... "You know," he threw out casually, "you stand a better chance of finding more work here in L.A. If you want," he paused, "you could come stay with me once we're done shooting." The alarmed look on her face prompted him to continue. "I have a guest house," he explained.

"We'll see." She turned around and put the strawberries back in the fridge. "I'll think about it." She walked up to Vince and placed a hand on his shoulder. "It's generous of you to offer," she said, "but it's also kind of implicative."

Vince smiled. "Implicative?" he asked. "Please, I'm a humble actor."

A snort forced its way through Peyton's nose. "Humble? Okay." She waved it off and continued. "It's suggestive –" she stopped momentarily, hesitating for suspense, "of an affair."

Vince's grin grew.

"And I'm not looking to date a coworker. Office politics and all that." She was smiling, but she really wasn't joking. It was one thing to start a fling with an extra, or even a character who you're not supposed to get along with, but once you're dating the person you date in your film, well...complications can ensue. After all, once you break up, how can you continue the chemistry? Acting is tough enough as it is; there is no need to push your luck by making reality more difficult to ignore. "Besides," she flipped her hair, "aren't you a bit old for me?" She knew it was a cheap shot, but she also knew it was true.

"Do I _look_ old?" he asked, puffing himself up.

"No," she said, "but I know you're older than me. A lot older." She sipped at the remains of her coffee.

"How old are you?" he asked. He was leaning against her skeleton of a kitchen table.

"Maybe I'll tell you tomorrow. But for now," she flicked off the light, "I need to sleep."

Vince was left to let himself out of her uniquely shitty five-floor walk-up.


	2. Chapter 2

Within the first two weeks, they'd hit a wall.

"What's the problem?" Mike asked. He wasn't pissy, but his snappishness wasn't undeserved. They'd just spent the last hour and a half shooting the same scene over and over again, only to fail each time.

"Maybe we should just shoot something else, just for today," Vince suggested, defeated.

"Okay," Mike huffed, "take a break for now."

The minute people started to clear, Peyton practically collapsed into herself. She became limp inside the doorframe of the house they'd rented for production. "Why can't I kiss you?" she whispered exasperatedly.

"Am I too old for you" Vince asked, trying to be funny. Peyton snapped her head up and glared at him. "Sorry," he shrugged, chagrined.

"I wasn't being serious when I'd said that," she told him. A few days ago, she'd mentioned off-handedly that she was nineteen. Vince had lit up a bit at the prospect; thirteen years between them was hardly an issue.

"Sorry," he said again. He put an arm around her shoulder. "Maybe we should get to know each other better. That usually helps." He wasn't trying to set up a date, but that certainly was what it sounded like.

She accepted anyway. "Okay."

"Let's go out tonight, grab something to eat."

"I could handle that," she said. "But you have to let me pay for my food."

Vince grumbled but allowed it. "Fair enough."

***

"Where were you?" Drama asked when Vince came through the door. Turtle was sitting before the TV, its eerie glow pulsating over his face. Eric was absent from the scene, and it still felt odd.

"I was out with Peyton for dinner." Vince willingly braced himself for the barrage of questions and taunts that were most definitely coming.

"Oh, so you're gonna' wine 'er and dine 'er first?" Drama asked slyly. Turtle barked a laugh from his place on the couch. "Isn't that usually E's thing?"

"Ha, ha," Vince said, "very funny, but that's not what's going on here."

"Not yet," Turtle muttered.

"She was having problems with a scene, so I thought if we maybe...spent some time together off set, she might feel more comfortable."

"Okay." Drama sounded cool and skeptical.

Vince turned in early.

***

Peyton was out on a date. Or, she was supposed to be, but somehow this didn't feel like one. Dates felt special and magical and priceless. Peyton felt none of these things. The closest she came to any of it was the paranoia that had settled unpleasantly inside her stomach at the thought of being caught spacing out.

This guy was reminding her of Vince. He didn't look like Vince, nor did he act like him, but that was just it: Peyton found herself missing the things that Vince said. The things he did. The way he held himself, even. Despite it, she rode out the date and politely declined a second one.

She couldn't wait for this movie to wrap.

Digging through her purse, she found something that she hadn't known belonged to her: written in smudged ink was a phone number. It was written on some of the catering staff's stationary. Below the number was written, _If you ever want to go over the script, call me_. She had a hunch as to whose number it was.

Without too much thought, Peyton picked up her cell. She dialed what she knew would be Vince's number. She waited while it rang a few times, not even sure why she was calling. Sure, she needed help with the script – well, more with just that one scene, but.... She knew that was hardly why she was calling.

Finally, "Hello?" It was a gruff voice, a voice that definitely didn't belong to Vince. Whoever it was sounded impatient, but not unfriendly.

"Hi," she said bluntly, "is Vince available?"

"He might be, who is this?"

If she wasn't mistaken, there was some sort of scampering in the background. Muffled voices emanated across the receiver but whatever they were saying was unintelligible. "It's Peyton. You know, his costar?" Part of her liked the association with Vince, but another part of her just liked the word 'costar.'

"_Oh_, it's Peyton, is it?" the man said. It sounded teasing, and yet she didn't get the vibe that it was aimed at her. "Well hold on, he's right here."

There were some more muted noises and words, but Peyton did her best to ignore it. Eventually, the phone was handed to Vince and he answered breathlessly, "Peyton? Is that you?"

"It's me," she said. "I must admit, I'm a little confused."

"That was Johnny, my brother." She could practically hear his glare over the phone. "Sorry about that."

"You live with your brother?" she asked.

"And my friend, Turtle," Vince answered, as though it made perfect sense.

"Wait, an actual turtle? Or is that his name?"

"No, he's a guy. His name is Turtle." This small piece of Vince's life wound its way inside her head and lodged itself somewhere safe from removal.

"Okay. Um..." she hesitated, "anyway, I found your number."

Vince chortled low in his throat. "I'd hoped you would."

"And I was wondering if we could maybe get together and practice the scene."

"_The_ scene?" he asked, just to confirm.

"Yeah."

"Well, do you want to come over?" He sounded stirred by the very idea.

"Now?"

"Sure."

"That's –" she stopped. She was going to say 'irresponsible,' but then, wasn't she an adult, at least legally speaking? She could go to Vincent Chase's house at...what was it, nine in the evening, without a guilty conscience. She had no curfew. No one to come home to and fight with for an explanation. "That's a good idea, actually," she said.

"Great. Want me to come and pick you up?" he asked.

"No," she said, "I'll drive." For one thing, if she went with him, he would have jurisdiction over when she left, and for another, she hadn't forgotten the last time she'd been in a car with him.

He laughed. "Oh alright." He gave her directions and she rushed to get them down on a stray piece of paper. "I'll see you soon?" he asked hopefully.

"Barring the traffic, yes." They said goodbye and she hung up, jumped into her car, and shot off through downtown L.A. in the direction of Vince's house.

Several wrong turns and countless slow traffic lights later, Peyton pulled into a long, sloping driveway. She walked up to the door and rang the bell. She wondered if it was possible to ring a doorbell timidly, and if it was, had she?

There was a thundering noise, and it took her a moment to figure out that it was several pairs of feet. This only quickened her heartbeat. The door opened and three faces greeted her, only one of which was familiar. "Hey," Vince was leaning against the doorframe, blocking the other two men. "Come on in."

Peyton stepped forward, almost into Vince's arms because of his proximity with the door. "Hi," she said bashfully.

"Peyton," Vince said, waving a hand at the other two guys, "this is my brother, Johnny, and this is Turtle."

Turtle stepped forward and took Peyton's hand, then kissed it. "A pleasure to meet you," he said, tipping his colorful Yankees cap.

"Likewise, Turtle." She pointed to the hat perched precariously on his head. "I see you're a Yankees man. I like that."

"You from New York?" Drama asked.

"Jersey, actually. Brick Town." She was proud of her hometown and she knew that it showed. She was proud of that, too. "I don't really care for baseball too much, but I feel obligated."

The three of them laughed.

Vince draped an arm loosely around her shoulder and steered her away to the kitchen. "Sorry about them," he apologized. He had his script in his hand, she was glad to notice.

"It's fine," she assured him. "Johnny's a little intimidating, but Turtle seems sweet."

Back in the foyer, Turtle looked triumphantly at Drama and said, "See? She thinks I'm sweet."

In his usual air of defense, Drama said, "Yeah, but if she thinks you're sweet, she thinks Vince is _delish_. Look at those gaga eyes!"

"She's walking away from us, Drama," Turtle pointed out.

"Isn't it nice?"

Back in the kitchen, Peyton and Vince had set themselves up with two glasses of Cristal and were talking script. They read over it several times, making sure to get down the lines before actually doing any physical acting. Finally, they tried it in tandem with movement.

"So I guess you deserve the truth," Peyton said, the lines laying down for her memory like lovers. She stepped up to Vince in the door of the kitchen, pretending that there were steps beneath her feet. "I really did have a good time with you tonight."

"And that's a bad thing?" Vince asked, playing his role perfectly.

"It kind of is, you know...if you think about what your parents would say if they could see you here with me."

"Carlie," Vince sighed and gave a tremendous eye roll. "I'm a grown man. I can see whoever I want." And then he leaned in and whispered by her ear, exactly like he was supposed to, "Now show me how good of a time you had."

She leaned up the way she should. He leaned down. He held her softly in his hands and she didn't have to act anymore to get the right reaction. She let him kiss her, and it lasted about three seconds before she pulled away, flustered and out of character.

"I'm sorry, Vince," she said, "I feel so stupid about this."

"Don't," he pushed. "Is this too open? Should we go someplace more private?" he suggested.

"I should get used to doing this in front of people," she argued.

"It's a little different with my friends. It's not the same as Mike and the crew and everyone. I'd understand."

She thought about it for a while. "Yeah, alright."

"Okay, come on." He led her up the stairs and into his room. Courteously, he left the door open a crack. "How's this?" he asked. "Too private?"

"No, this is fine." She picked up at the beginning of the scene and once they got to the kiss, she faltered again. "God, I'm sorry," she said.

"Don't feel bad," he insisted. "It's not always easy, kissing someone you're not into." It was obvious that he was slightly stung. When she didn't say anything, it only surprised him that much more; usually chicks fell for bait like that.

"Let's forget the scene, for now. Let's put down our scripts." She demonstrated, leaving her pile of papers on his cluttered bedside table. He did the same. She stood before him and then wound her arms around his body, pulling him closer.

"What exactly are you doing" he asked. He was liking it, whatever it was.

"Just pretend," she insisted. This was a side of herself that she hadn't shown Vince – nor that she had intended on showing him.

"Okay," he breathed. He hiked her up a little and leaned in. They kissed, softly and without any tongue, just to feel each other out. Then, Vince slipped his tongue in her mouth, testing his boundaries. She accepted and reciprocated. She even giggled.

Then, they stopped. "Wanna' try it again?" she asked.

"Yeah," he answered. They kissed. And they kissed some more until finally, their scripts lay forgotten on Vince's bedstand. Eventually though, Peyton brought them back to focus.

"Maybe we should try it with the lines, now."

"_Aw_," Vince whined, but he conceded.

***

"That was beautiful, you two!" Mike shouted happily at them the next day. "I don't know what you did, but it was brilliant!" He called for a break and sent everyone back to makeup. After getting a quick touch-up, Peyton hung around, watching the different members of the crew set up, changing lenses and moving lights. The first time she'd ever been on a movie set, she'd marveled at the amount of people involved – the people you never heard about, whose names appeared as minute and unreadable white lines on the credits. But these people were everything, she felt. Sure, the actors were the heart of the movie, the director and writers its soul, but these people – the gaffers, the AD's, the makeup artists...they were the only reason movies came to life.

It was easy to forget about them, so Peyton always remembered not to.

Vince came bounding up to her. "What'chya doin?" he asked. He seemed...bouncy. It was weird.

"Just watching the crew...waiting around."

Vince nodded. Suddenly, his eyes lit up. "Ari!" he shouted over her head. He started waving someone down. A sharp man in a suit was headed their way and he looked...well, to Peyton he looked like he might be full of shit. "Peyton, this is Ari, my agent," Vince introduced them. "Ari, Peyton, my costar."

There was that word again.

"Nice to meet you, baby," Ari gave her a brief hug and some of that characteristic Los Angeles cheek-kissing. It never got easier for her to like. "Vinnie, how's it going?"

"Um, it's going good, Ari. Is there a problem?" Vince knew for a fact that Ari never showed up at the shoot unless there was a problem...he was reminded uncomfortably of the _'Smoke Jumpers' _debacle.

"No problem at all, Vinnie, just..." and here, Ari glanced at Peyton, "I'd heard you, miss Peyton Leigh, didn't have an agent."

"_Jesus_, Ari," Vince put his palm to his forehead and sighed. "You're not seriously talking deals here, are you?"

"I don't need an agent," Peyton said. She knew she sounded rude, but how else could she put it? "I got myself here, didn't I?" she gestured vaguely at the set around them.

"And that's impressive," Ari said. Vince could detect the slightest, tiniest hint of genuine awe in Ari, and that at least made him feel better. "But sweetheart, Hollywood isn't nice. This whole DIY thing? It's cute for now – people dig it, but sooner or later, it ain't gonna' fly."

"So fuck 'em," she said, taking a bite out of an apple.

Ari looked taken aback for the briefest moment. "I like her," he said to Vince. "Hear me out," he tried again. "You can keep up the 'working class' bullshit for as long as it works, but when it doesn't?" he handed her his card, "Call me."

"Ugh." She tossed the thing in her purse and headed back to her car. Vince followed her, leaving Ari in the dust.

"He's a good agent," Vince insisted, mostly out of loyalty.

"Is he a good guy?" Peyton asked.

Vince hesitated. "Yeah, I think so." He winced as she slammed her door shut. "He was offering you his business, though, not a date."

"I'd rather do business with someone who'd be a good date," she said, storming back towards the set. "Besides, why the fuck should I pay someone else to do a job I'm perfectly capable of doing myself?"

"Because it's easier?" Vince suggested.

"I'm not lazy like you, Vince," she teased. At least she sounded happier.

"I'm not lazy," he said, "just...in business. If you _did_ hire Ari, though," he mentioned coyly, "we'd see each other all the time." He had no idea why he'd said that. Was he really playing the field for _Ari_?

"I'm going to see you for the next..." she calculated, "month and a half. I'm going to have to hide from the world after this so that I don't see your face on the magazine rack in Walmart."

"Ouch."

She looked at him. "I'll consider it, maybe."

"Just like you said you'd consider staying with me...a _week_ ago?" he asked.

Mike called them back to the set. Ari was standing off to the side, settling in to watch.

"A week isn't enough time for that kind of decision." She was walking onto the set, positioning herself for the next scene. They'd be in the house, this time. It was a fight scene between the couple, Carlie and Dane.

"Sure it is," Vince said, persistent. "And after that, take another week to think about Ari's offer. He'll get you some good work." Vince was shaking himself out, prepping for the tense scene ahead.

"I said I'll think about it."

The fight scene wasn't very hard to do.


	3. Chapter 3

The pipes under the building had burst. The boiler was probably going to need to be replaced – that would raise her rent for about a month. One of her windows was cracked, the result of some stupid kids. And oh yeah, the dryer had stopped working.

But that hadn't been the deal-breaker. No, the thing that had made her cave was when she had to climb out to the fire escape, and while she was hanging laundry, she realized she had to pee. Being that her toilet was out of commission, that meant she had to go down to the corner store to use the facilities. In and of itself, that was embarrassing enough. So, in pajama shorts and a translucent wifebeater, Peyton marched herself down the street and thought scathingly, _Actress my ass_.

Deciding to do some last-minute grocery shopping, she pulled out her wallet and gathered a few things together – the essentials: some celery, eggs, salad dressing, and beer. The walk back was pretty uneventful. There were kids playing under the spray of a fire hydrant, wives scolding their husbands for being late. It reminded her of home a little bit, only perhaps less friendly.

Peyton climbed up the stairs and tried very hard to ignore the steady growth of the pain in her shoulder as she carried the two six-packs of Corona. In 2B, the widow's soap opera played too loudly; in 4A, little Jimmy was fighting with his brother, Tom, who apparently wouldn't relinquish the TV remote; Peyton's neighbor, 5B was finishing off whatever he'd started with his wife two hours ago.

Peyton turned the key in the door and pushed it open. She placed everything down on the floor and took a few deep breaths. Summer was her favorite season, but in California, it seemed, there were _five_ seasons: autumn, winter, spring, summer, and hell. Guess which one was currently under way? Peyton turned to put the beer and eggs in the fridge. When she opened the door, expecting to feel that wonderful rush of cold air, she was horrified to find that the little light wouldn't turn on. And it was warm.

"_Fuck_ no!" she yelled. She jiggled the bulb in the socket. Nothing happened. She tried giving the decrepit old thing a good smack on its side, but still. Nothing happened. Finally, hoping that she wouldn't have to dump anything, she picked up a carton of milk and gave it a whiff.

_Ugh_.

A mixture of incensed and depressed, she picked up her phone. She dialed. She waited, tapping her bare feet against the dirty linoleum. Eventually, somebody picked up.

"Hello?" It wasn't Drama, and it didn't really sound like Vince or Turtle.

"Hi," she said. She was on the verge of tears. "Is Vince there?"

"Yeah, hold on a second. Who's he speaking to?"

"Peyton," she said, stifling a sniff.

"Oh hey! It's nice to finally hear your voice. Anyway, here's Vince."

Peyton was thankful for the small window of time so she could sob a little before Vince would hear.

"Hello?"

"Hey Vince," she whined. "It's Peyton."

"You sound awful. What's wrong?" he asked.

Dejected and defeated, Peyton huffed. "Vince," she said, "I'm getting my shit together right now. I'm moving in."

***

"I'm glad you decided to stay with us." Vince was walking alongside Peyton, feeling sort of useless as she was carrying her only suitcase – and yes, the two cases of beer. "I just wish it was under different circumstances."

Peyton sighed. She wasn't in the mood for an argument.

"You deserve someplace better anyway," he said. Was he trying to make small talk? "So, this is it." Vince opened the door to the guest house, and in all honesty, it was nicer than anywhere she'd ever stayed. Ever.

"Wow," she said reverently.

"Mi casa es tu casa," he chuckled. "There isn't much in here, but go ahead and make it your home."

"I'll buy my own food," she breathed as she took in the place.

"Ridiculous," Vince muttered.

"So that was Eric who answered the phone?" she asked, just to redirect the conversation. She wasn't comfortable with Vince's insistence that she use his stuff. It was bad enough that her Nissan looked like a run-down soapbox beside all the big, shiny toys in Vince's driveway.

"Yeah, but we call him 'E.'"

"He seems really nice," she said. She was starting to wonder if she should have just taken him up on his offer a while ago.

"Yeah," Vince scoffed, "and you also think Turtle is sweet."

"Well he is," she defended him.

"You should hear the things he says about you," Vince said.

"What? Are they mean?"

"No," Vince shrugged, "only nasty."

Peyton laughed. "He's a guy – just like you. I take it as a complement." She put her stuff down and finally sat on a couch. "I don't know how I'll settle in with hardly anything of my own." It was more to herself, but Vince picked up on it.

"So use some of the money from the movie – they'll advance you."

She rolled her eyes. "Vince, I told you already: I've got hanging debts." She fell back a little further into the couch cushions and muttered, "It would've been cheaper to go to college."

Vince perched on the armchair rather than taking an actual seat. "What kind of debt keeps a nineteen-year-old so anxious?" he asked.

Peyton laid back, stretching across the sofa and sighed. "I don't wanna' talk about it," she said.

Vince hesitated. He wanted to know. "Well I do."

There was a grating silence as the air grew thick between them. Five minutes in this place and already she was being interrogated. Then again, if she was living here, she maybe owed him one.

"I..." she broke off, not sure how to put it without it sounding wrong, "I pay my mother's bills."

"What?"

"Yeah," Peyton sat up. "See, Dad left the minute he found out Mom was pregnant with me, and well...you can't force child support if you can't find the dickhead who left." She wouldn't look at Vince while she talked. "Anyway, my Mom dropped out of college and you need a degree to work just about anywhere these days, so after I got old enough, I...took over."

"How old is 'old enough?'" he asked. This time, he tumbled over the armrest and sat beside her. He knew about lost-dad syndrome.

Peyton laughed darkly. "Thirteen."

"So you took care of yourself, basically?"

"Doesn't everybody?" she asked. "I mean, if you don't have to, you do it anyway," she mused. "Kids are always telling their parents to butt out or to leave 'em alone, and then they end up having to fend for themselves. It's no different for me."

Privately, Vince disagreed with her. "Is this why you got into acting?" It _was_ good money, once you fought through all the bullshit.

"A little bit," she admitted, "but I love it to death. I wouldn't do it if I didn't." She heaved another sigh. "Nope, if I had to, I'd be working a bar all evening and working a pole all afternoon just to pay the bills."

"That's sad," he commented.

"That's life," she countered. She had a very no-nonsense attitude about life. She enjoyed it when it was good, and she dealt with it when it wasn't. She figured that for everything that had gone wrong, she could have been given a lot worse. "Anyway," she pushed, signaling the end of their little heart-to-heart, "I'm making a run to the store. Need anything?"

"Um," Vince was about to say, 'not that I can think of,' but then he got a better idea. "Actually I have a list. How 'bout I roll with and we can get that done together. Saves gas," he added hopefully.

Peyton shook her head. "Whatever."

***

Walking through the parking lot, it came to Peyton's attention that they were being watched.

"Yeah, that happens," Vince said when she pointed out a gaggle of paparazzi. Purposefully, he hung an arm around her waist and said, "You get used to it." It took all of one minute and forty seconds to get the bags into the back of the Escalade and then another five minutes spent arguing in front of the driver's seat.

Peyton won.

"I'm only letting you drive because I'm nice," Vince insisted.

"I'm only driving your car 'cause you suck," she teased.

"Hey, I'm letting you live with me."

The drive back was slow and would have been a great time to talk, but Peyton fielded Vince's questions and conversation starters with little interest. She was feeling nervous and maybe a little listless about her new living situation. Because that's what it was: a living situation, not a home.

The guest house felt big to her. After all, her home back in New Jersey hadn't been much bigger than a two-car garage and it certainly hadn't had anything more than a VCR in it. This place was decked out in full entertainment regalia. Peyton turned on the surround-sound radio and listened while she started putting groceries away. She turned down the lights and relaxed for a while, mulling over her dinner options.

Meanwhile, in the main house, the boys sat around the living room with plates full of food. It smelled good. It tasted delicious. They couldn't figure out what it was. That was just how Drama did things in the kitchen, though; you ate his food without question because it tasted good – even if it looked like crap.

"Peyton seems nice," E said, spooning more green stuff into his mouth.

"She is," Vince agreed. "She's fun to work with."

"Fun to work with? Baby bro," Drama said, flinging his fork in Vince's general direction and spattering Turtle with sauce, "she's a girl. She's a _nice_ girl. Nice girls are never 'fun' to work with."

And he had a point. Most nice girls were sweet and funny, usually charming. They tended to laugh at all your jokes and they would flirt with you in ways that were adorable and predictable. They were usually good in bed too, for what it was worth. But nice girls couldn't run with the boys. They would meet your crew once and then they would hate them, and yet time and time again, they would insist that you bring them with you. And then they would complain about your friends' 'vulgar' behavior and the cycle would start again.

It was a routine well-known in the house.

"Well," Vince suggested, "maybe she _isn't_ a nice girl. She's different."

Turtle sputtered, laughing. E threw Vince a look and Drama shook his head. "Listen, they're all 'different.' Don't go falling head over heels now, okay?"

"That's not what I meant, asshole. She isn't...what's the word?" Vince wondered aloud.

"A bitch?" Turtle supplied.

"That too," Vince agreed. "She's not pretentious, I guess is what I'm trying to say. She doesn't even act like...well, you know."

"An actress," Drama finished.

"Yeah." Vince put his empty plate on the coffee table instead of heading to the kitchen for seconds. "I mean, she doesn't even have an agent."

"Seriously?" E asked. "Does she need a manager, by any chance?"

Vince laughed. "You can ask her, but she'll tell you 'no.' She already turned Ari down." There was a resounding 'oh snap' sort of noise. "Yeah, he pitched her and she just tossed his card away like it was some douchebag's phone number from a bar. She's not interested."

"How'd she get into such a big budget film then?" E asked.

"I don't know exactly, unless she just sent them some of her film. She was really good in her other movies." Vince remembered with a tremble her kissing scene with that other girl in _Sickly_. He'd played it over and over and over.... "She saw _Queens_ _Boulevard_, you know."

"Yeah?" E, oddly, was the most interested of the group.

"And she loved it."

"How about that," said Turtle sarcastically. "Look Vince, she's a real honey. She's hot. And sure, she isn't some frigid Hollywood bitch, but don't get yourself into shit with her. I got bad vibes."

"Bad vibes?"

"Yeah. Don't you trust me?"

"You're my friend Turtle, but you're no psychic." He turned to his brother. "What'd you think, Johnny?"

Drama paused thoughtfully. "What do I think? I think you should take a plate out to her if you want to start something."

Vince smiled and stood, leaving his own crumb-covered dish behind. Someone would get it.

"And don't go telling her _you_ cooked it!" Drama shouted after him.

Vince threw some food onto a plate and set it down on the counter while he pulled out a bottle of wine. Plate in hand and wine at his side, he marched down to the guest house and knocked on the door. It swung open, and Peyton stood before him in her pajamas and flipflops.

"Hi," she said. She looked tired.

"Hey, can I come in?"

"It's your guest house," she said, standing aside. That made him laugh. "What'cha got?" she asked, pointing at the plate.

He set everything down in the kitchen. "Some of Johnny Drama's excellent cuisine and a bottle of genuine Bordeaux."

She winced. "I hate wine."

Vince looked at her disbelievingly. "The only wine you've ever had probably came off the booze rack at a Sunoco station."

"Shut up," she pushed him.

"Just try it, you'll like it." He poured them each a glass and raised his. "To new friends," he said.

"To first dates," she decided.

"Really?" he asked. Something turned in the pit of his stomach.

"Yeah, a guy I met down at the shoot. He was working the lights, I think." She took a sip and swished it around her mouth before swallowing. "It's a little tart, but I guess it's okay."

"You can do better than a lighting guy," Vince said. "You like sweet things?" he asked.

She laughed. "Yeah."

"I'll bring chocolate next time," he promised. He watched as she tentatively took a bite of food.

"It's good," she decided. "Can you cook?" she asked.

Vince shrugged. "Not like Johnny. But I know how to make a few things."

"Like what?"

"Well, you'd have to sleep with me to find out," he cocked an eyebrow and stared at her, waiting for her to blush or look away.

She didn't. Instead, she stared right back. "I'll cook my own pancakes, thanks."

Vince pouted and wondered if she knew he wasn't really joking.

***

"Where's Peyton?" Drama asked.

"She's on a date," Vince said. He was trying to sound happy for her, but it came out sarcastic and begrudging.

"I thought you took that plate out to her to rev things up." Drama turned around and looked at his brother with some amount of disappointment. "I noticed the bottle of wine missing, by the way."

"I took the plate out. We talked. She liked the food."

"And...?" Even Turtle was curious.

"And she'd already had the date set up. Some guy on the lighting crew," Vince answered, disgusted.

"You wasted a bottle of Bordeaux and you didn't even get laid?" Drama asked.

"We're working together," Vince pointed out.

"And since when has that ever stopped you?" E accused. He looked strangely disheveled. When Vince didn't offer any answer, E went on. "Look Vince, you've got like, five girlfriends right now anyway. Peyton doesn't seem like a girl you should play with."

"What, you think she'd be heartbroken?" Vince asked. He wouldn't want to hurt her – he didn't like hurting any girl – but the idea that he might mean something to her was enticing.

"No," E said, "I think she'd kick your ass."

Drama and Turtle laughed raucously.

Suddenly, the phone rang. It was Peyton's cell. Vince jumped on the phone before anyone else could. "Yeah?"

"Hey," she laughed. She sounded way too happy. "Vince, can you open the gate?"

"Yeah," he said stiffly. "Bye."

Together, the boys watched as a shiny blue sports car pulled up the driveway. A handsome man came around and opened Peyton's door for her. Vince chastised himself for never doing that. Peyton and her date walked up to the guest house together, and the group of boys followed them through the house, watching intently. The four of them watched Peyton get a rather steamy goodbye kiss.

It was safe to say that there would be a second date. Vince snorted and turned around, walking away. He leaned against the pool table and shook his head, annoyed and possibly jealous.

"Vince, be cool, buddy." Turtle threw an arm over Vince consolingly. "Why are you so into this chick, anyway?"

Vince didn't answer at first. He just scowled. Then, "I'm _not_. I think the question is why isn't she into me?"

Drama squinted, studying his brother for a moment. "Ah, I see what's goin' on here," he said, sounding enlightened. "You want her 'cause she don't want you, am I right baby bro?"

Vince glared at Drama. "No. I'm just curious. After all," he said, "what girl _doesn't_ want me?"

"That one," Turtle pointed out the window at the guest house.

"Fuck you, Turtle." Vince retreated to his room and turned on his music loudly so that it would disturb whatever happenings were going on in the guest house.

***

Peyton came into the house at around noon. She was still in her pajamas and a robe. She found Vince in the kitchen with Turtle, going through a box of fan mail. "Was that really necessary?" she asked him pointedly.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Vince feigned innocence, but he knew exactly what she was talking about.

"Yeah, you do." She sat down across from Turtle and smiled pleasantly at him before moving on. "Your music was way past healthy decibels last night. You were _so_ cockblocking me."

"You can't be cockblocked if you're a chick," Vince pointed out, not looking up from the letter he was reading.

"Cuntbunted, then." She sounded aggravated and in some sick way, Vince felt relieved. Turtle snorted a laugh at the invented term. "I could've gotten lucky," she persisted.

"You could've anyway," Vince told her remorselessly.

"You're cranky," she accused. "And sorry if I can't seem to get it on while listening to _Mysto and Pizzi_." She pointed a finger at Vince and said, "You're fucking with my game."

"I owe you," he said.

"The fuck you do," she replied. "I'm going out again tomorrow, so no more douche moves."

Finally, Vince looked up. "That wasn't a douche move," he said.

"So what do you call it?"

"It was..." Vince searched for something sensible, "self-preservation."

Peyton threw him a look and walked off. "I'm going swimming."

Turtle, who had sat quietly and watched all of this, looked pitifully at Vince and said, "Me too." Vince shook his head, listening to Turtle tell Johnny that Peyton was in the pool.

Then, Vince was struck with an idea. He called Lia and sweet-talked his way into a date for the night. It was guaranteed that she would stay the night – it was what always happened.

Feeling confident that he was about to settle his i.o.u. with Peyton, he settled back and relaxed.

***

"How long do you think they've been up there?" Peyton was sitting on the couch and watching Turtle kick Drama's ass at Mortal Kombat. Vince had returned with Lia at nine, and it was now eleven thirty-five.

"What, you jealous?" Drama asked shamelessly. He knew what Vince was trying to do, and he was going to tell him if it worked.

"No," she answered effortlessly – actress for a reason, after all - "but I'm worried; should we call the ER?"

"It hasn't been four hours yet," E chuckled. "And besides, Viagra's Ari's thing."

That managed to get a laugh out of her. "Ari is such an asshole...I think I like him." She'd heard a few of the usual transactions between E and Ari. She admired his power and his complete lack of shame.

"Don't get any ideas," Drama said, clicking away on the controller, "he's attached at the hip to Mrs. Ari."

"Oh, I didn't mean that," she said. "I mean, damn – for forty, he's bangin'. But what I meant was that I've been reconsidering his offer. E," she looked across to the bar, "how much does that motherfucker charge?"

"Too much," E insisted, enjoying his chance to take a cheap shot at Ari, "but he'd make an exception for you. He wants you."

"Why?" she asked.

"You're a good actress," E explained.

"And good-looking, not to mention," Drama added. Then he swore, having missed a window to beat Turtle down.

"Question," Turtle noted, not taking his eyes off the screen. "Would you fuck Ari?"

Peyton laughed. "Oh, probably. He wouldn't even have to offer me the deal. I told you, he's hot shit."

"You like him?" Drama asked, picking up on where Turtle was going with this; they were defending Vince, doing some scope work.

"Fuck, didn't I just say he's an asshole?" she asked, and E laughed. "You asked if I'd fuck him, not if I'd marry him."

"She's got a point, dude," Turtle said. He punched the air in victory when Drama's guy went down.

Peyton stood up and walked over to E, sitting beside him. "So," she said quietly, "do you think I should take Ari's deal?"

Eric hesitated. He felt odd, being consulted by her. For some reason, it left him feeling unsettled. "I think you should if you want more jobs like this one," he said. "I also think that if you meet with him, you need to up the ante. You have to remind him who needs who in this deal, or else he'll set you up."

"Smart is such a good look for you, Eric," she said, touching his shoulder. He shivered.

Just then, Vince came down the stairs unannounced. He saw Peyton and E and he looked confused. Then he looked angry.

"Where's what's-her-face?" Peyton asked.

"Asleep," Vince answered solidly. He hoped that he sounded nonchalant. "What're you guys talking about down here?"

"Nothing interesting," she answered before anyone else. Somehow, it seemed stupid to rehash any of the conversation, even for Vince's benefit. There was something very finite about Peyton's words.

Vince walked back up the stairs with nothing left to say.

***

"Sounds controlling to me," Melissa shouted over the pounding bass. "Why are you even living there?" she asked, spilling some of her drink.

"Because I got sick of having cockroaches for pets," Peyton said, trying to avoid reevaluating Vince.

"So it's either cockroaches or control freaks? Sounds just like Jersey to me." Melissa had refused to be left behind when Peyton had gone to L.A., though she wasn't nearly as ambitious. Melissa worked as a waitress and a bartender, content to live off of those wages and that profile.

Peyton had always commanded rooms while Melissa managed her fire.

"He's not a control freak," Peyton insisted, "he's just...uncomfortable with me bringing people back, I guess."

"Well he needs to get over it," Melissa answered.

_Like that'll happen_, Peyton thought.

When she got home, Peyton was struck with a thought. She mulled over her conversation with Melissa at the club. Maybe Vince _was_ uncomfortable with the thought of her with someone in his house. Granted, that wasn't a fair deal because he brought girls back all the time, but then, she wasn't providing Vince with anything in return. Maybe it wasn't meant to be fair.

The next day, on the way to the shoot, Peyton brought it up. "Vince," she padded gently around his name, "are you not cool with me bringing people back after dates?"

Vince swallowed hard. He hadn't thought she would talk to him about it. He'd forgotten that in the end, she was a real girl; she did real girl things, like talk about shit. "Well, maybe a little." He prayed that she wouldn't ask why.

She didn't. "Okay, I won't then."

"That wouldn't be very fair on my part, would it?" Vince hated himself for trying to do the right thing.

"It doesn't have to be." Peyton was fiddling with her seatbelt. "It's not very fair that I'm living at your house and eating your food, is it?"

Vince choked out a strangled, relieved laugh. "No, I guess not."

They pulled onto the set and started walking in separate directions, headed for their makeup artists. Then, Vince saw Peyton get intercepted by a girl, a busty blonde who gave her a close hug and...a kiss on the lips. Not a sisterly kiss, a _real_ kiss. Like, with tongue.

_Fuck_, Vince thought, as disappointed as he was turned on.

***

Vince all but slammed the door of the Escalade. "I didn't know you had a girlfriend," he said. It would have been conversational if only his teeth hadn't been clenched.

"Um, we're not going steady or anything," Peyton said, picking up on the sudden tension between them. "I met Kia at the bar last night."

"Hmm." Vince murmured tightly as his hands shifted over the steering wheel. He didn't ask anything else the whole ride home, which was pretty unpleasant on the whole.

"She likes girls!" Vince shouted the minute he'd shut the door.

Immediately, three sets of ears tuned in. "What are you talking about?" E asked. Even though he had his own house, he was here most of the time. Vince didn't see the point, quite honestly.

"Yeah, what? She's a lesbian now?" Drama asked skeptically.

"No," Vince said, flopping onto the couch, "she's bi. I saw her with some girl, _Kia_," Vince rolled his eyes exaggeratedly, "at the shoot. And there's no way they're just friends."

"Did they smooch?" Turtle asked.

"If you wanna' call it that, yeah," Vince answered begrudgingly.

"_Damn_, I'd be all over that," Turtle mused. "I bet she likes threesomes."

Vince tried not to think about it; he wanted to be mad.

"Nah," Drama joined in, "I agree with Vince."

In unison, Turtle and E asked, "Why?"

"Look at it this way," Drama made a grand hand gesture, "It's hard enough to compete with the same model car, but now he's up against a whole different company."

"I'm not _up against_ anything," Vince asserted. "I'm not after her!"

The three guys just looked at him with sad eyes, like, _why don't you give it up already_? But before Vince could say something about it, they heard a car revving in the driveway and the gate opening.

Vince watched Peyton drive off, knowing that she was probably going to Kia's. He suddenly regretted agreeing that she shouldn't bring people back. At least then, he'd know what was going on.

***

Kia was a good kisser. No. That didn't do her justice. Kia was an _excellent_ kisser. She and Peyton were sitting cuddled up together on a couch watching a movie, title long since forgotten.

But when Kia wanted to go further, Peyton stopped. "I'm sorry, I just...." For once, Peyton blushed.

Kia took the hint. "You've never done this before, huh?" Her voice was gentle and kind. She wasn't after anything in particular, including a relationship, but she certainly wasn't going to be a bitch.

Peyton shook her head.

Kia sighed. "If you want to go, you can. I'll understand." She took a sip of her soda and leaned back. When Peyton stood to leave, Kia took her hand and said, "Be good to that guy of yours."

Peyton looked at her quizzically. When it registered that Kia was talking about Vince, she laughed. "He's not mine," she told her.

Kia smiled knowingly. "He doesn't know it yet, either."

Feeling shaken, Peyton left. The drive back was quiet and dislodging. That night, her sleep was fitful.


	4. Chapter 4

Peyton spent two hours dressing, undressing, and redressing until she'd found the perfect outfit. It wasn't her usual number, but it was effective: grey, pleated mini-skirt and a pastel pink cold-shoulder top, not to mention seven-inch Lucite pumps. She even threw a grey fedora over her bronze head of hair to great effect.

Vince's eyebrows shot up when she came out to meet him and the guys. "Why so dressed up?" he asked. He couldn't help but notice that he wasn't the only one checking her out.

"I'm playing to Ari's good side after our last meeting," she offered as an explanation. She was compensating for her rudeness by looking like a stripper, it seemed. A classy stripper, though.

"I think she's gonna' get to his bad side, if you know what I mean," Drama muttered to Turtle, who chuckled under his breath.

"So what made you change your mind about Ari?" E asked in the car.

Peyton thought about her answer. "He's shrewd – shrewder than me. I could use him."

_I bet you could_, Turtle thought.

"I'm going to have to play his game though, if I want it to work in my favor."

"Such a player," Vince teased.

It was no secret that everyone – _everyone_ – was watching them walk through the building when they got there, and it was even less of a secret why. Just the way Peyton walked in her shoes was a wonder to watch. She walked at the head of the pack, and the boys were okay with that.

Lloyd greeted them at the door and paged Ari. Through the fishbowl walls, Peyton watched as first the boys went in. She hung back with Lloyd and Turtle, making conversation. "So do you like working for Ari Gold?" she asked.

Lloyd smiled. "He says I fill two quotas – of course I like working for him." Lloyd had come to look at Ari's slurs as a private joke.

"Well I think you're very cool and very well-dressed, Lloyd."

"God, I hope he takes you on."

E, Drama, and Vince all filed out of Ari's office and took seats in the foyer. Ari waved Peyton in. "Come on in, let's talk business."

Peyton made sure to sashay a little extra as she entered his office.

From the outside, Vince watched intently as Ari and Peyton cut deals. First, there were a lot of hand motions, and for a moment, it looked like Ari might blow a gasket. Clearly, Peyton was going to play him up before hitting the right offer. After Ari had seemingly cooled down, Peyton started talking again. Ari was pinching the bridge of his nose, his eyes closed. Then, he said something else that made Peyton laugh. She nodded.

"She is _so_ making eyes at Ari," Turtle said.

Vince's skin crawled.

E intervened. "She wouldn't make hot eyes at Ari."

"Besides," Drama added, "you know Ari loves Mrs. Ari."

"It doesn't mean he can't think about banging her," Turtle argued. "Oh look! There it is!" Turtle was practically jumping out of his seat.

The three of them looked over to see that Peyton had her hand splayed out carefully across Ari's knee, and that it was doing wonders.

Ari stood up and grabbed a stack of paperwork.

"She is a miracle worker," Lloyd commented.

Peyton walked out of Ari's office with a satisfied smirk in place, the paperwork in her purse to be filled out later. "See?" she said once they were out of the building, "Some of us don't need a manager – no offense, E."

"None taken," E said, genuinely impressed.

Vince had to ask. "Were you making eyes at Ari?"

Peyton laughed. "_No_. Well okay, maybe a little bit, but it was purely for business purposes." She remembered what Kia had said about Vince and had to work to breathe right. "Besides, Ari's married."

Vince was finding that was his only comfort.

***

Vince's cell rang loudly, cutting through the afternoon quiet. It woke him up and left him feeling disoriented. "Hello?" Vince spoke groggily into the phone.

"Hi," it was Peyton, "you sound sleepy." And she sounded confused.

"I was taking a nap," Vince confirmed.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she apologized. "I wasn't expecting you to be asleep."

"Me and the guys are going out tonight." Vince thought for a moment, then said, "You wanna' come with?"

"Well, I don't have anyone to bring, but..."

"That's fine," he said, thinking that it was more than fine, "you can go with me."

"Seriously?" she asked.

"Yeah. Everyone else has a date but me, so you know...as friends?" he offered, thinking about how dumb that sounded.

"Alright," she agreed. "But we've got work tomorrow."

"It's fine," Vince waved it off. "We just won't get _as_ drunk." He smiled when she laughed; it made his stomach feel like it was full of helium.

"When should I be ready?"

Vince considered. "Ten-ish," he decided.

"Alright," she said, and hung up. Vince fell back to sleep quickly, happy to have someone to go with, even happier that Peyton wouldn't be with someone else.

***

When Vince's alarm went off, he was actually grateful. It had woken him from an awful, awful dream. In it, he'd been going to see Ari about something. When he'd made to walk into the office, Lloyd had stopped him, insisting that he was early.

"No I'm not," Vince had said, and when he opened the door, he'd walked in to find Peyton bouncing eagerly in Ari's lap.

Ari, ever cool and collected, had said, "Vinnie! You're just in time to join the party!"

Luckily, the alarm had gone off before he could beat his agent to a pulp. _Why me_? Vince thought ruefully, beginning to realize what was going on.

Vince threw on a dark pair of jeans and a loose, white shirt. Feeling like he'd just stepped out of a fashion campaign, he admired himself in the mirror before heading into the bathroom to brush his teeth and do some last-minute maintenance. Having finished up, he hurried down the stairs and over to the guesthouse. He knocked on the door and waited outside.

Peyton was hardly ready when she heard his knock. She threw on the closest thing she had – a body-hugging green dress that would sparkle under the right light – and rushed to the door. She opened it and let Vince inside. "I'm not really ready yet," she said breathlessly.

"That's cool," Vince sank onto a couch. "I don't mind waiting." He could tell she'd already put big, luscious, loose curls into her hair and he could smell citrusy toothpaste on her breath.

Peyton holed up in the bathroom and worked to apply just the right amount of black eyeliner and dusty green shadow, then concentrated on not poking her eye out with the mascara. She'd grown way too accustomed to having other people do her makeup.

Vince took some time to observe the slightly changed surroundings: slowly, Peyton had begun to add to the place. There were candles on the coffee table. There were pretty, sparkly decorations in glass bowls. There were gardenias _everywhere_.

Peyton emerged from the bathroom with a professional makeup job and some golden heels. The shoes weren't as impressive as the ones she'd worn to Ari's office, but they were more practical for dancing.

"You really do dress to impress," Vince commented.

"I try," she said. Together, they walked out to the Hummer. Drama, Turtle, and E were already inside with their dates, Kelly, Jamie, and yes, Sloan. There was a lot conversation that surrounded them while they were in the car, but somehow, Vince and Peyton couldn't pay attention. They were in their own little world, something that Peyton had been avoiding for a long time. But when she was confined to this little space with him, it was impossible. "So," she whispered, "is this a date, or what?"

Vince's mouth became a wide smile despite his nerves. He wasn't cool as ice like he normally was. She made him into a broken circuit, muscles turned to open-ended wires. "Only if you want," he answered.

"Maybe I do." She trailed a fingertip over his shoulder and down his chest, taking it away at his hip. It didn't go unnoticed. She whispered in his ear. "I'm nervous about tomorrow," she confessed.

Vince was already sweating. "Why?" he asked.

Peyton leaned in real close. "We're having sex tomorrow," she purred.

Vince's eyes got wide and his mouth tilted into a crooked, hopeful smile.

"In the movie, Vince." Peyton put both hands on his chest and pushed, but she only succeeded in falling onto him in the car.

"You shouldn't be nervous," Vince told her, disappointed. "We'll both have jeans on under the sheets." He swallowed. "And they'll...shoot us...." Vince stopped talking and let her kiss him. This night was changing things.

"Save it for the club, you two!" Turtle called from the driver's seat.

Peyton backed off. "I'm saving it for much later," she winked at him. There was a resounding '_oh_,' in Vince's favor. Vince couldn't tell if she was teasing or if she was serious and it was getting to him. How was he supposed to know what cards to play?

They all tumbled into the club and immediately headed for the dance floor. Peyton, even in heels, was an excellent dancer. She moved in perfect tandem to the music; her hips rolled like ocean waves; her hair fell through the air like spun bronze; she lost herself in the music and it was some kind of enticing. She danced indiscriminately. She danced with her soul.

When she found a seat beside Vince and picked up a drink, he asked her, "How come you never said you could dance?"

"It never came up," she shrugged and tossed back the shot from the rack that Drama had ordered. She blinked. "Tequila?"

"Probably," Vince said. In his head, he had to keep reminding himself that she was nineteen. Briefly, he wondered what had made her so…adult. He brought a hand up to her face and brushed away some hair.

Peyton flinched away. "I'm gonna' go dance some more, 'k?" She started to walk away, and Turtle threw a confused glance at his friend.

"Vin, either go after her or find a pretty girl to dance with!" Jamie was kissing Turtle's neck, and it made Vince wish for the car.

Instead of heeding Turtle's advice, Vince sank back into the couch, feeling invisible.

Sometime around two in the morning, the eight of them left. Somehow, Peyton had been carried into the house by everyone else's current. Normally, they might all hang around in the living room together and laugh a bit, but seeing E and Sloan leave put everyone else in a similar mood.

Everyone except Vince and Peyton. Instead, they sat alone in the living room. To break the silence, Vince spoke first. "You said you were nervous about tomorrow?"

"Yeah. I've...never done that sort of thing before."

"It's not hard. It's not even weird."

"I've heard it is, you know, pretending to be intimate with all those people there...." she shuddered.

"Wanna'..." Vince trailed off, not sure if what he was about to say was smart or incredibly, _incredibly_ stupid. "Practice it?"

"_Yes_, I thought you'd never ask," she said, much to his relief.

Vince pulled her onto the couch the way they'd probably be set up the next day and started off the scene. There was a lot of kissing. There was a lot of touching. There was a lot of reciting. But aside from the reading of their lines, nothing felt fake.

Suddenly, Vince's shirt was being pushed up. And Peyton's purse lay forgotten on the floor. "You know what I think?" Vince said, losing his breath as he spoke.

"What?" she asked.

"I think we should practice some more upstairs." He was taking his chances.

Peyton bit her lip and looked away. Finally, she looked into Vince's eyes with an intensity that almost got him off right there. "Okay."

They climbed over each other on their way up the stairs, almost tripping several times. They all but fell into Vince's room and Peyton stumbled clumsily out of her tight dress. Vince shook off his jeans and got out of his boxers, unwilling to wait. He pulled her onto his bed and extended one of her prettily shaped legs, taking her foot in his hand. She watched in agony and anticipation while he undid the clasp on her shoe and carefully set it down on the floor. He did the same thing with the other one before climbing up onto the bed between her legs.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," she said back. "We practicing or what?" she asked, feeling his side.

"Practice," he nodded, "right." He found his drawer and the condoms inside of it, and magically managed to get one on. It wasn't long before he shoved forward, forcing a perfect, strangled cry out of Peyton. For the first few minutes, he was lost in her warmth, how tight she was. But then, he noticed something.

As happy as she looked to be where she was, Peyton looked like she might be in pain. Her nose was scrunched up adorably, and her bottom lip looked ready to burst under her teeth.

"Am I doing something wrong?" Vince asked.

"No, _God no_. Keep going." She gripped his arms and pushed back on him. "Fuck, Vince," she didn't sigh. She didn't whine. She _growled_.

Vince grinned and lifted her legs up onto his shoulders, searching for that perfect spot. When she screamed, he knew he'd found it. She looked beautiful underneath him. She looked _happy_ underneath him. But still, she looked in pain....

...an hour later, they'd both gotten off. It took every fiber of his being to make Vince get up and toss the condom away. When he'd found his way through the dark and back into the bed, Peyton threw herself onto him. "Think you can do that a few more times tonight?" she asked teasingly.

"Of course," Vince said, "but you realize you're not getting any sleep, right?"

"I'll hold you to that," she said, and rolled over onto her stomach. "Now Vince," she said, "get behind me."

"Your wish, my command." Vince told himself that sleep was overrated anyway.

***

Maybe they'd gotten a few hours of sleep after all, because Vince woke up the next morning, unable to remember falling asleep in the first place. Instead of the ghostly rays of moonlight from the night before, brilliant sunshine flooded his room. He sat up slowly and pushed his legs over the side of the bed and just sat for a while, gathering his bearings. His eyes wandered across the floor, not searching for anything in particular.

But still, something caught his attention.

Vince cocked his head to the side, examining his trashcan. Confused by what he saw, he leaned forward to get a better look. On the top of the debris were four condoms. That made sense. None of them were broken, which was a great thing. Then again, Vince would have known if that had happened. No, that wasn't a problem. The problem was that one of them was stained with blood.

_Oh shit_, Vince thought as reality struck him hard on the head. He turned over and tried to shake Peyton awake. "Peyton, come on! Wake up!"

"Mmmm," she moaned, "five more minutes, Vince."

"No, up. Now."

Peyton rolled over and glared at him. "It's early. We don't go in until two this afternoon!"

"That's not it. Peyton," Vince was flustered and angry and confused. "You could've mentioned you're a virgin," he spat.

Despite Vince's anger, Peyton smiled coolly. "Well I'm not anymore, am I?"

"I...but..._ugh_!" Vince spluttered.

"Relax," she rolled her eyes at him, "I'm no responsibility. You offered, I took, end of story," She turned back onto her stomach and put her head down on the disheveled stack of pillows. "Go back to sleep."

"Wait," Vince blinked, trying to clear his vision. "What exactly do you think happened?"

"I have no expectations of you, Vince," she said easily, "and I hope I was right in thinking you don't have any of me."

Vince sat back down and asked, just to be sure, "No expectations? So...you're not going to make anything of this?"

Peyton turned onto her side and looked up at him frustratedly. "I wasn't waiting for a diamond ring. You were my...Mr. Right for the Night. 'K?"

"Okay." Vince couldn't believe his ears. What had happened to the prim, 'Mr. Right Forever' virgin? At the moment, all his rules and notions of the world were going to shit. Unable to go back to sleep, Vince headed downstairs to wait for someone to wake up so he could relate this to the real world.

***

"You seem happy this morning," Turtle remarked to Peyton. He'd entered the pool house just in time to see her take a twirling jump into the water.

"I am, Turtle," she said certainly, "I am." She dove under the water again and treasured the tingly feeling against her skin. Her body didn't feel new to her. She didn't feel as though something was missing or that something extra had come. She felt just as she always did, if not a bit sore. But then, that was to be expected.

Turtle chuckled to himself and settled in a chair with the morning paper.

Just then, Drama came in and whispered to Turtle, "Hey, we're having an emergency meeting inside. Get your ass in there."

"Okay, okay," Turtle said. He made to call to Peyton, but Drama stopped him.

"No, just us boys."

Confused and only slightly worried, Turtle followed closely behind his friend into the living room, where Vince and E were already waiting. Vince looked like a mess. The room felt oddly dark. "So what's up?" Turtle asked in his clueless Turtle way.

When no one spoke, Drama decided to take matters into his own hands. "Vince fucked a virgin."

"What?" Turtle felt the smile on his face before he could stop it. It was such an absurd thing to say.

"Our Peyton, as it turns out," Drama supplied, "forgot to mention that she hadn't gotten around to having sex yet. Last night..."

Vince put up a hand. "I'll explain it." He breathed deeply and did his best not to look up at the faces of his friends. "See, we were rehearsing today's big scene, just like the kiss. But we got...carried away. And it was great. I didn't even know."

"You didn't _know_?" E asked, incredulous. He felt a little insensitive, but seriously.

"She was tight, but that doesn't always mean anything," Vince defended himself. "And we did it like, four times. No problem. She didn't complain about anything."

"Sounds great," Turtle said.

"And she says she doesn't expect anything of me."

"Sounds even better," Turtle added.

"I have to agree with Turtle here, baby bro. What's the problem?"

Vince thought about it a little harder, something he'd been avoiding all morning. "I guess...I feel like I _should_ be responsible. It's weird."

"Vince," E said, putting a hand to Vince's back, "she doesn't want you to play boyfriend. Let her have it her way."

"Guys?" The door opened and Peyton – drenched – had eased into the room. Abruptly, everyone shut up. "Is something wrong?" she asked. She looked concerned when she looked at Vince.

"Nothing. Just having some guy-time," Drama said, subtly dismissing her. Peyton took the hint and walked off towards the kitchen. As soon as she'd let, E got up and shut the door.

Reluctantly, Vince spoke quietly to the carpet. "Maybe she's not the one with the expectations."

"Seriously?" Turtle asked. He sat next to his friend along with everyone else.

"Maybe," Vince said.

***

Vince had been right: they were both wearing a pair of faded jeans under the covers of the prefab, tousled sheets on the set bed. Miraculously, it took only two takes to get the big sex scene right – but of course, being the good director that he was, Mike had insisted on doing a few more, just for the edits.

"That went well," Peyton remarked when they were done. She pulled a shirt on and peeled off her pasties underneath it. Vince couldn't stop himself from glancing down at her chest every couple of seconds.

"Yeah. Well...we had practice, didn't we," he said softly so that only she would hear.

"You're not still mad at me, are you?"

"You tricked me."

"I did _not_," she argued. "You never asked me if I was a virgin. You should've thought of that, Vince." She was pulling her hair into a severe ponytail and reaching for her water bottle.

Vince inhaled sharply and looked away before saying, "You didn't...come off as innocent, exactly."

She frowned at him. "It's not like I've never heard of sex. I've watched porn before. Believe me, I knew what it was, I just...never did it. Now," she said, walking over to Marc for her between-scenes touch-up, "how about you just bask in the fact that you popped a cherry and get over it."

Vince should have gotten his own touch-up done, but instead he followed her. "How can you be so..." he searched for the right word, "cool about this?"

Peyton scoffed. "It wasn't that big of a deal, to me. I mean," she corrected herself, not wanting to sound like a slut, "it was kind of a big deal, but not to the point where I had to be in love." She thought about it for a moment. "In fact," she decided, "I think it would have been worse to do it with someone I loved."

"_What_?" Vince had never heard this sort of logic before.

"Well think about it," she proposed, "I would've had my heart broken."

"Yeah, probably," Vince agreed. "But that's why I don't _do virgins_."

Peyton laughed. "It's a good thing I'm not in love with you," she said.

Vince left, not angry, but definitely in need of some time to think. He'd have to work to concentrate on the last of the scenes.

***

Peyton checked herself out in the mirror, twisting a bronze curl. She hated the curling iron, but sometimes it could be her best friend. She admired the way the white sundress accented her figure. She positioned her pillbox hat just so on her perfectly set hair. Already, her shoes were killing her feet.

Against her better judgment, Peyton slipped out of the white pumps and into a pair of comfy flats. Not as sexy, but then again, she didn't want to overdo it. _He's my agent, not my boyfriend_, she thought. She went to grab her purse only to discover that it wasn't on her vanity. She checked the kitchen, but it wasn't there either. After wasting an immense amount of time, she remembered that she'd left it in the house and so was very grateful for the flats as she marched up the drive and then the stairs.

"What're you so dressed up for?" Vince asked, munching away on a bowl of Fruit Loops. "It's only nine in the morning." It had taken an entire week – not to mention six one-night stands – for Vince to finally get over their incident.

"Oh, I have a breakfast meeting with Ari," she said flippantly. She found her purse hanging out on the couch in the other room. "We're meeting in like, twenty minutes and I'm gonna' be so late."

"Ari's actually going to meet you before noon?" Vince asked disbelievingly. He felt a small trace of milk trail down his chin.

"It was his idea," she told him, rushing by and leaving a shadow of delightful perfume. "I'll be back..." she stopped. "Well actually, I have no idea when I'll be back, but soon, probably."

"Well alright." Vince watched with a bad feeling in his stomach as she waltzed out to her car and drove off.

Peyton sped towards the street Ari had given her, and it took less time than it should have. The only problem was how there were at least _five_ different coffee shops – plus all the other eateries. But sure enough, there was Ari's car parked neatly outside a rather upscale brunch place. It looked expensive. Nervously, she fingered her wallet as she walked in. A cute waiter greeted her kindly, and he informed her, "Mr. Gold has already arrived." Personally, she felt it was a little too much formality for such an early hour.

Ari was smiling up at her when she reached the little table and sat down primly – uncharacteristically. "Good to see you, baby." Thankfully, he didn't attempt to lean over the table and give her a kiss on the cheek.

"It's nice to see your face for once, too, Ari."

"The dress fooled me," he professed dramatically, "I thought you wouldn't be nearly as feisty as usual."

"Sugar and spice and all that. So, what have you got for me?"

"Well," and now, Ari had his agent voice back on, "I showed a few clips of your performance to a couple of business prospects and –"

Peyton cut him off. "Wait. Now they'll be looking at Vince over me."

"Most of what I showed them was all you, sweetie. Relax." Ari placed one of his big hands over hers. He was warm. It was comfortable. "Oh good," he said when a tray of food arrived at their table. "I ordered for you – hope you don't mind."

"Whatever," she shrugged. She was surprised to see that there was a plate of strawberry crepes that was placed in front of her. She wondered if maybe Ari had ordered Lloyd to find out her favorite breakfast item. She took a sip of her iced mint tea and batted her eyelashes. "So, tell me more."

"You've got a lot of offers, sugar. Hollywood loves you."

"They haven't even seen me," she said, surprised beyond belief.

"No," Ari corrected, "the _public_ hasn't seen you, but the real Hollywood has seen you. The directors, the casting directors – everyone who matters has seen you." Ari finished a bite of some blueberry-crème pastry thing before carrying on. "There are screenwriters all across America who are throwing out their old projects just to write something with you in it."

"That's a bold claim, my friend," Peyton said, savoring a sugarcoated strawberry.

"It's not a claim, it's a promise," Ari asserted. "I have a box full of scripts that were sent for you to read back at the office."

Without even waiting for Ari to finish his thought, Peyton reached across the table and took his hand in hers. "So let's go back to your office."

***

Vince lounged around the house, mostly by himself. Turtle had classes. Drama had a new gig he had to be at. E was doing his own thing. Like a ghost in his own home, Vince roamed around, drifting from room to room and moping. He was bored. He was lonely. No one was answering his calls. He knew he could easily call Nicole or Lisa or _somebody_, but...he didn't want to. Vince wanted what he wanted and he wanted it _now_. But the question was: did he deserve her? Infamously, Vince never 'broke up' with anyone. But then, what did he call it? And what could he expect from Peyton in this situation?

She'd said she wasn't looking for a boyfriend. But then, hadn't a friend of Vince's once told him that when a girl said that, what she really meant was 'you're not boyfriend material?' "I am _so_ boyfriend material," Vince insisted to himself.

"Of course you are," E's voice answered him.

"E! Hey man, what're you doing here?"

"Can't I just drop in to see a friend?" he asked, chuckling.

"Totally, yeah, I just...." Vince turned around on the couch to face his friend. He watched as E navigated the bar as easily as if he still lived there. "I wasn't expecting you or anything."

"Well, I hadn't planned on stopping today, but hey. I figured, why not?" E took a sip from his drink. "How're things going with..." he nodded sympathetically, a torn look on his face.

"Peyton?" Vince asked innocently. "Nothing's going on."

"Oh come on, don't play dumb with me." E stepped forward and sat down on the couch. "I see the way you look at her."

"And how is that?" Vince asked skeptically.

"With puppy-dog eyes, Vince," E said. He didn't sound mocking or at all upset with this. "Face it, you like her. There's no shame in that."

Vince scoffed. "There is _plenty_ of shame in that," he said. "_She_ was the virgin. _I_ popped _her_ cherry, and then _I'm_ the one who falls? What the hell _isn't_ shameful in that situation, E?" Vince was feeling incredibly frustrated with himself and the world. Everything felt...inside-out. Backwards.

E smiled grimly. "It had to happen someday, buddy. You had to get serious about someone. So what if it's this girl? What's so wrong about it?" E clapped a hand onto Vince's shoulder. "Look, I'm not saying that by getting serious you're killing all your options, I'm just saying that maybe if you stop playing the field all the time, it would be good for you."

"Are you willing to stand by that in a court of law?" Vince asked, only half joking.

"You bet."

Vince thought about this. Finally, he said, "Fine. Maybe getting serious isn't a bad thing -"

E cut him off. "Not at your age, Vince."

Vince punched E softly in the arm. "But what if I end up like you and Sloan?"

E had the nerve to look offended. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

"Well come on, look at how long you guys played games. You were always in and out of each other's lives. It looked pretty painful."

"It worked out, didn't it?" E asked defensively.

"Sure, I guess."

"Okay. So you might have to work for it a little, but you'll be alright, Vince." E stood up suddenly. "Isn't that Peyton's car pulling in now?" he asked, pointing out the window.

"It is," Vince answered. He knew what he had to do. "I'm gonna' take care of this, E. I have a good feeling about this."

"Good luck. I'll am-scray so you can do your thing." He left his glass on the polished bar counter and added, "Say 'hey' to the guys for me."

"Yeah," Vince said absentmindedly.

On his way out, E greeted Peyton. "Hey, can I help you out with that?" he asked once he saw the large box in her hands.

"God Eric, you're a saint," she huffed. She passed the large box over to E, who manfully carried it to the guest house for her. Once he'd set it down on the steps, he managed to catch his breath. "You know," he said, "I think Vince wants to speak with you." E hoped he was doing more good than bad in helping things along; he just didn't want Vince to chicken out on himself.

As Vince's friend, E thought it was about time that he got something wonderful.

"Oh God," Peyton looked suddenly worried. She had her thumb and forefinger placed precariously over her forehead. "We wrapped the movie – what if he wants me to move out?" she wondered aloud.

"I don't think that's it," E said patiently.

"You don't?" she asked. It was clear that she suspected he knew something.

"Nah, Vince isn't that kind of guy." E fished around his pockets for his keys. "Just go up and talk to him. Whatever it is, I'm sure it's just fine."

"Alright," she smiled, obviously still suspicious. "Thanks for the helping hand, Eric." She smiled at him good-naturedly.

"You're welcome," he said, heading back to the driveway to leave.

Peyton shoved her box of scripts by her bed and decided to change before going up to see Vince. She considered all the possible things he would want to speak to her about. She worried. She got worked up. She almost puked.

In her pajamas and bare feet, she marched herself up the driveway and into the house. "Vince?" she called. Her voice echoed through the empty house and its emptier hallways. She went into the kitchen, thinking maybe he was upstairs. _He'll be down soon_, she thought. When he wasn't, she called out his name again. This time, there was a call back.

Peyton followed his voice to the pool house. She found him swimming, dark hair dripping into his face. "Hey," he said cheerfully, "jump in!"

She considered it, but decided against it. "I'm not dressed for it," she said.

Vince looked at her like, 'so what?' "Come on, Peyton. Get in here with me."

Looking around nervously and seeing that no one else was home, Peyton sighed and peeled off her tank top and shorts, diving into the pool in only her panties. She hadn't bothered with a bra, and now, she supposed, the universe was punishing her for it.

"So, were you with Ari all day?" Vince asked. This had been a point of worry for him throughout the day. The meeting had been at ten (presumably), and she'd only just gotten home at five. Seven hours. What could they possibly have had to do that had spanned seven hours?

"Yeah. We went over a lot of scripts together. We talked about what jobs would be better for 'me and my career.'" She said the last bit mockingly.

"You know," Vince swam a little closer to her, "Ari doesn't usually take such a personal interest in his clients." He shot her a hurt glance and a soft pout. It worked.

"Jesus, Vince. It's not like that." She turned her head away, but Vince snatched her chin in his hand. His skin was wet on hers.

"What's it like?" he asked.

"It's..." she stuttered, caught off guard by his abrasiveness, "It's like he's my agent and I'm his actress."

"If I didn't know Ari better," Vince said, feeling relieved, "I wouldn't believe you. You were gone for _seven_ hours."

"You were counting?" Peyton asked, stunned.

"Every minute," he assured her.

"Well," she said, trying to ignore the fluttery feeling that gave her, "Ari and I just get along real well. That's all."

"That's good," Vince pressed himself against her, trapping her against the pool wall, "I've seen what happens when Ari doesn't like someone. It isn't pretty."

"Vince, what are you doing?" she asked nervously.

"Nothing," he smiled against her neck. He kissed her and pushed himself into her.

"I told you," she breathed, "I'm not looking for a...a...." she sighed.

"A boyfriend, I know." Vince didn't stop. "I don't have to be that. I can be something else."

"W-what?" she wondered, entangling her fingers in his hair while he cradled his head in her cleavage.

"Whatever you want me to be," he told her. It was cheesy, maybe, but it would do the job. "Just do me a favor, okay?"

"What?" Peyton was just glad not to be stuttering. She looked at Vince and he seemed more pleading than anything else. His pout was real now; his eyes were really begging for understanding.

"Nobody else," he whispered into her skin. "Just me."

Peyton gasped as his tongue brushed one of her nipples and his hand squeezed down hard on one of her soft hips. "That...that sounds an awful lot like a –"

"It's not. It is what it is, but not that."

Finally, after he'd stopped his assault on her body, Peyton was able to garner enough breath to ask, "Why not?"

"Because," he answered sincerely, "that's not what you want it to be."

Peyton fell limp against Vince. "Okay."

He smiled. "Okay."


	5. Chapter 5

When Drama and Turtle showed up at the house, they stumbled upon Vince and Peyton cuddled up on the couch together, eating dinner. "So you two finally decided to get together?" Turtle said. Before either of them could answer, he turned to Drama and put out a demanding hand. "You owe me eighty bucks."

"We're not _together_," they chimed in unison, then laughed at one another.

Turtle rolled his eyes. "Come on, Drama. Pay up."

"You heard 'em," Drama said, "they said they're not together." Shrugging Turtle off, Drama took a seat and settled in, his money still safely in his pocket.

"So if you two's ain't together, what do you call it?" Turtle asked, some soft New York pushing its way past the years he'd spent in L.A.

"We're..." Vince thought, trying to find the right word.

"Experimenting," Peyton supplied happily and threw an arm over Vince's shoulders. She leaned in closer to him, solidifying the others' suspicions.

"Well that ain't what _People _magazine calls it." With a flourish, Turtle presented them with a copy of the tabloid. Taking up a good portion of the lower cover was a picture of the two of them from the day at the grocery store, Vince's arm slung around Peyton. And admittedly, it _did_ look like they were 'together.'

"What's this bullshit?" Peyton picked up the rag while Vince ignored it, chuckling into his beer bottle. She opened up to the story where a few other misconstrued pictures decorated inlays beside a small but very convincing article about how they were on their way to becoming Hollywood's next 'it' couple. "But we're not even a couple!" Peyton splayed her hand violently over the magazine.

Vince shrugged and squeezed her. "They're trying to get us to act out. If you get angry, you're letting them win." Vince had never been too obsessed with his public image; after all, if he lived for the lens, he would never have any fun. "Do you have any idea of what's been said about me in those things before?"

"Yeah, I do," Peyton spat, throwing the magazine back onto the table. "But it's one thing for you to be a playboy..."

"Come on," Vince pulled her up by the hand. "Let's go upstairs and…work out your stress."

"Oh alright. I'm angry though," she warned him.

"That's fine." Vince turned to his brother and friend and winked. Drama and Turtle merely shook their heads in reverence.

oOo

"Feeling better?" Vince asked, struggling to catch his breath. He was lying on his back, pretty sure that this was what 'overload' felt like. Every nerve tingled; every inch of his skin was on fire; even his bones felt full.

Peyton, panting, forced a laugh up from her chest. "Define 'better,'" she said.

Vince hummed and nudged her cheek with his nose. "Not so angry?" he proposed. He tried to hold her, but she fought him. She inched away from him slightly, and batted away his fluttering hands. It wasn't the first time Vince had encountered someone who wouldn't cuddle, but it was the first time it had hurt him.

"No, I'm not angry." Peyton's voice – like her posture – was stiff. Her body was buzzing like Vince's, but not with pleasure. Instead, the air around her felt nervous and full of unspoken anxiety.

"What's wrong?" Vince asked. He tried once again to touch her, but she twitched. It made him stop.

"Nothing's 'wrong,' I'm just...not cool with us cuddling." It was a half-truth, which made it mostly a lie. Peyton knew this, and so she scolded herself for it. She prided herself on being an honest individual. She wondered if her lie was the product of nerves or this town.

"That's cool," Vince said. "Can I ask why?"

Peyton chortled. "You can," she said.

When she didn't answer immediately, Vince stalled. "It's just, most chicks are all about it, you know..."

"I know," she whispered. "I usually am, too."

"But not now? Why? Is it me?" For a frightening moment, Vince wondered if maybe he hadn't delivered quite as well as he usually did.

"God, don't ask me that," she whined. "It's not fucking _you_." For some reason, that made him laugh. "It's that, well, we're not 'together.' If we were, I'd feel more...right, letting you hold me."

"You let me hold you downstairs, _in front of the guys_," he reminded her. Cautiously, he trailed a single, lonely finger down her side and began tracing soft circles over her hipbone.

"_Mmmm_," she thrummed under the small display of affection. "That was different," she insisted, and she found Vince's finger and removed it from her skin. It was a gesture full of remorse. "You know that makes me crazy," she scolded him.

"Why do you think I'm doing it?" he put his finger back on her hip and continued to trace circles, making them tighter and tighter with each rotation. When she tried to stop him again, Vince trapped her hand beneath his and squeezed. "Stop. Let me."

Peyton squirmed; she moaned in mixed pleasure and protest, but gave in. Vince traced his circles and when he was sure that she wouldn't try to stop him anymore, he removed his other hand from hers and let it fall between her legs. "_Ffffffuuuuuuccckkk_," she groaned, face half-smothered in the pillows. Imitating his other hand, Vince made circles. This time, instead of resistance, he was met with a primal sort of push-and-shove. "Vince, _God_..."

"Shh," Vince hissed into her ear; some of her bronzy hair tickled the bridge of his nose. As much as he loved the way she sounded, he got the feeling that she needed to be reined in. "Doesn't mean we're together," he promised.

"What's it -" she gasped, "mean, then?" A soft, grinding moan issued itself from her throat and soaked into the ceiling, the sheets, the curtains and the carpet.

Vince chuckled. It was a low sound that began in his chest and traveled slowly up his throat before reaching his lips. "It means," he groaned _right_ into her ear, "that I want you. But only if you insist," he teased her, taking away his hand.

"_Vince_," she growled threateningly.

He laughed again. "Okay."

oOo

Vince was out, visiting Drama at the set of his new gig. He'd offered to bring Peyton too, but she'd complained of a stomachache. In all honesty, she had a lot of scripts to read, and not very much time to do it in. So, she'd gone down to the guesthouse and settled on the couch with a stack of Oreos and another screenplay.

But something felt out of place. She squirmed. She sighed. She was distracted. Finally realizing what the problem was, she begrudgingly retrieved the box from her bedroom and hauled it up to the house, up the stairs and into Vince's room. She curled up inside his bed and began to read. It went much more smoothly.

About halfway through one of the scripts she actually _liked_, her cell phone rang. _Big Man With A Gun_ echoed mutedly through the room, so she knew it had to be Ari. She glared resentfully at the little phone and let it ring itself to death. Eventually, Ari gave up because Trent Reznor stopped growling. Peyton smirked self-satisfactorily and sank into Vince's sheets, continuing to read down the page.

Not even a minute later, the phone rang again. Still Ari. Again, she let the phone ring itself out, but it was harder to ignore. It was the middle of the afternoon and she was trying to find her next project and Ari wasn't giving up. This time, _thirty seconds_ after the phone stopped ringing, it started up again. Without waiting, she snatched up her phone and slid it out. "What, Ari?" she snapped.

"Nice to hear your voice too," he said in that undeterred Ari way. "So, what're you up to?"

"_Ari_," she whined, "I'm busy. I'm trying to read the scripts you gave me."

"A few minutes of your time won't make that much of a dent," he insisted. "You at Vinnie's still?" The question was rife with curiosity, more curiosity than Peyton thought appropriate of an agent. "'Cause you know, the tabloids are gonna' have a field day when they start to notice that."

"I'm not worried about it," she lied expertly. She would take Ari down if he was going to make a nuisance of himself. "Why?"

"I go grocery shopping," Ari informed her. "I see your pretty face next to Vin's all the time. And for the record?" he shot, irritated, "I can read. No publicity stunts, alright?"

Peyton sat up and pushed her back into the stack of pillows. This was a challenge: this was what she lived for. "Gee Ari," she changed her pitch to accommodate a false innocence, "if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were jealous."

"I have a wife," he reminded her.

"I know. And I know you love her dearly, so don't screw it up." Her words left an eerie, solid silence between them. After a long, expectant moment, she sighed and braced herself. "I'm sleeping with him, Ari."

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Ari shouted. Despite his anger, Peyton couldn't stop a chuckle at the image of him throwing his hands up in the air, scaring Lloyd. "So what's gonna' happen when you two break up? I won't leave Vince behind."

"I never needed you in the first place, Ari," she spoke calmly. "I just like your company."

Ari snorted, clearly frustrated. He waited for the air to clear before getting back to his original mission. "Peyton," he tried again, this time winding a ribbon of silk into his voice, "what are you doing?"

Peyton sighed heavily. She'd told Vince _no one else_. But…did over the phone count? Ari certainly didn't think so. She assessed it in her mind: if _Vince_ had phone sex with another girl, would she be angry? _Nah_, she decided. "I'm in bed, Ari." She reached over and let the script slide onto the bed stand.

Ari chuckled. "Tell me about it."

"I'm naked," she reported. It was the truth, but she would omit the fact that it was because she was expecting Vince to come home and jump her. That part was unnecessary information. "And my legs are spread."

Ari groaned into her ear and it sent shivers through her. She liked his voice.

"Got a hand under the desk, Ari?" she asked seductively. She'd once had a boyfriend who had told her she had a great voice for phone sex – of course, that was back when phone sex was the only sex she'd had.

Ari laughed. "You have no idea."

"I hope you locked the door," she told him.

"Of course not," he said, sounding surprised. "That's half the thrill, baby." To console her, Ari added, "But the blinds are closed."

"Fuck, I hope you wouldn't be _that_ stupid." After her moment of lost cool, she put the voice back on. She dirty-talked for Ari, and she let him tell her what to do, but…it wasn't guilt-free. Vince's smell pervaded her nostrils, and it didn't help that in the throes of passion, she smothered her face in the sheets.

It was hard to remember to moan Ari's name rather than Vince's.

oOo

The guilt parade marched on. When Vince came home, the first thing he did was ask what she did while he was gone.

"Oh, I read scripts, you know…" she laughed nervously. Vince threw her a confused look, but shrugged it off. "And," she added, catching him around the waist, "I missed you." As true as that was, it was also an evasive way around her guilt. She wasn't in love with Vince, but she did feel some sense of loyalty to him….

Vince grinned, and the oblivious gesture hurt Peyton that much more. "You wanna' go upstairs and show me how much you missed me?"

Peyton bit her lip. "How about we…" she thought for a moment, panicking, "go for a ride. You know, in the car?" She couldn't possibly face Vince's bed right now.

"Which one?"

"Any one." Peyton was restless; she could feel that itchy nastiness plaguing her muscles. It was guilt incarnate: guilt inhabited her limbs; guilt had crawled inside her head and was gnawing at her skull; guilt had settled like a disgruntled cat in her stomach, and its purr was inescapable. "You know what?" she changed her mind again, "let's just go upstairs."

Vince cracked the biggest smile. "Okay. That works for me." He held her hand the whole way up. He would glance back at her, always looking so sure of himself.

Peyton never did have to face his bed. She did, however, have to see it out of the corner of her eye while the carpet itched and scratched against her back.

oOo

Many people liked to say that they couldn't live in the city because you can't see the stars. But Peyton disagreed. Her favorite thing to do in Los Angeles was take out the car and just drive, on and on. Better than that, she liked to hike through the Hollywood hills at dusk and just sit, waiting for dark to descend so she could admire the way the city's lights came on like millions of lightning bugs.

From the large window in Ari's office however, her vision was limited. Peyton sighed, looking out over the panorama and realizing that, though it couldn't have been more than a year, she was already sick of this gold digger's town. The new job would certainly be a breath of fresh air: a new city, a new home...new Peyton, maybe. She barely registered the sound of Ari's businessman drone while she ran over the many how's and why's she would have to feed Vince soon. Worse than hurting him was the fact that it was too obvious that she was hurting herself. And then, that only proved to her that she _had_ to get out of here.

Thanking Ari and taking the plane ticket in her hand, she left Miller & Gold in a foggy, solemn mood. The drive back home wasn't even enjoyable, as Peyton's mind was far too occupied with nerves and regret, and failed attempts at suppressing that regret. Neon lights and buzzing fluorescents whirred by like streaks; faces of strangers found her like ghosts of her past. No matter how high she cranked the volume in the little car, the voice of her conscience still found her.

_Don't do this_, it said, over and over again.

"But I have to," she insisted out loud, releasing it into the Universe.

Scared of finding Vince, she hesitated at the door, wondering if she should just spend her last night in the guest house. But after a few seconds, she pushed through the door and up the stairs – she could leave him without being a coward about it, couldn't she? She dropped her purse beside the many bags and bits of luggage she'd packed up that morning and left by the door. She shed her clothes there, knowing that everyone was either out or in bed. Naked, she climbed up the staircase for probably the last time. She crept silently through the house, unwilling to acknowledge her own bitterness. Upon reaching Vince's bedroom, she held back tears, hating herself. Knowing she was going to give him the best night they'd shared so far when really it would be the worst was tearing her up inside. But she'd asked Ari for this movie, not only for the ingenious script or the chance to work with an internationally recognized director...no. She needed to get away from Vince before things got too serious.

Peyton put on a smile and those classic seductress eyes, batting her lashes and parting her lips for Vince. "I missed you," she steadied her voice, "how was your day?"

"Good," he smiled, "and it's about to get better, huh?" he answered, eying her like a boy might eye his favorite sports car, always praying that no one would buy it before he hits sixteen.

_I'm so sorry, Vince_, she thought.

oOo

Peyton was jostled uncomfortably as her plane landed on an O'Hare landing strip. Shaken from sleep, she looked out her window: beyond the airport buildings, she could see long rivers of highway and crisscrossed streets and avenues. Skyscrapers, some elegantly modern and others breathtakingly old jutted out against the sky, creating a beautifully fragmented skyline.

Just out of the airport, she found the limo that had been waiting for her. She surprised the driver by insisting that she ride up front with him. "To make conversation easier," she told him.

His name was William, and he was endlessly interesting and knowledgeable. He couldn't have been more than thirty-nine. In his nasally Midwestern accent, William gave Peyton a commentary as they drove out over Lake Shore Drive, past Lincoln Park and countless museums. North Michigan Avenue, with it's archaic buildings and fabulous high-end retailers sent her head spinning; Peyton's favorite part was the way the little bridges built a picture frame for the river below.

When they reached the apartment complex the company would be putting her up in, she was sorry to see William go because even though he was fun to talk to, it was mostly because she would be alone with her thoughts, which were still in Los Angeles...

When Vince woke up, he was alone. Of course, he was hardly alarmed: Peyton had a tendency to take morning swims or to eat breakfast ahead of him. He fell in and out of sleep for another two hours before finally rousing himself out of bed. It was odd that Peyton hadn't come up to see him in those two hours, but again, he didn't question it.

What he did question was the somber mood of the house. When Vince loped down the stairs and into the kitchen, Drama and Turtle were leaning in conspiratorially, murmuring in low voices. As soon as they saw Vince enter the room, they each went silent and the air went dead. "Morning guys," Vince greeted them, confused by the morose atmosphere.

Drama looked at Turtle, who looked back at him before turning his face down at the floor. Finally, Drama held out a minuscule piece of paper, on which Peyton's handwriting looked cramped and harried. "I'm sorry, baby bro," said Drama listlessly.

Vince held it out at arms length, first. He read it and blinked. Then he brought it closer and closer to his face, finally reading the words at the end of his nose. He read it over and over and over again. It wasn't very long. In fact, it was short and even sweet...though, it was not very to-the-point.

"Okay," Vince shrugged nonchalantly. "It says she's gone to Chicago, for a film...no big deal." He sniffed and turned around, heading out the door.

"Where you goin' Vince?" Turtle called after him.

Vince didn't answer. The two men made to follow him but the door being shut loudly in their face was kind of an indication. Vince marched doggedly down to the guest house. He opened the door, and was overcome with the starkness of what lay before him: nothing. The furniture was bare; there were no baubles, no decorations in bowls...the pictures that had been affixed to the fridge on magnets were all gone. Determined, Vince meandered into the bedroom.

Empty too.

Collapsing onto the pristine bed, Vince breathed deeply. _She'll be back soon_, he consoled himself.


	6. Chapter 6

Sprawled across her new bed, Peyton felt the space was unnatural. After sharing a bed, having so much room to stretch her legs felt...wrong. She was sitting up late, attempting to read a book, but would catch herself every other paragraph thinking longingly of Vince. It didn't help matters of course that the novel of her choice was _The Great_ _Gatsby_. Setting the book down, splayed open across her chest, Peyton gazed out of the gigantic windowpanes that made up one wall of her bedroom. The lights of Chicago glittered and gleamed at her pleasantly, persistently cheerful. She sighed warmly, managing a moment of contentedness.

Chicago's lights seemed more hospitable than LA's, but something was undeniably _missing_...

A month had passed since Peyton's cowardly flight from Hollywood, but still she couldn't stand to bring somebody home with her. She'd gone out, prowled the streets at night and even entered the occasional club, but nothing had ever come of it. Admittedly, she somewhat enjoyed her newfound privacy: sleeping alone was okay. Maybe it wasn't as good as...she couldn't bare to think about it...but it was okay.

A fleeting glimpse at the clock on her bed stand horrified her: its neon blue blared two forty-five am. Quickly she marked her page in _Gatsby_, clicked off the light and sunk beneath the covers, the loneliest she'd been in a month.

oOo

"Vince." E was sitting across the way, looking glumly determined. "I don't think she's coming back." He swilled the untouched brandy in his glass and cocked his head.

"Nonsense, E! She's doing another movie and then she's coming back." Vince's smile was so blissful, and so convinced that Eric felt like a bully trying to talk an oblivious kid out of his lunch money.

"Why did she pick something that had to be shot on location then?" he asked gently. He couldn't indulge Vince but that didn't mean throwing caution to the wind. In fact, E wondered briefly if he managed to break Vince of his little delusion if he should throw himself out the door, before Vince could.

Vince scoffed. "I don't think she picked it because of the location. It was probably a good script – and you know as well as I do how hard that is to come by," he winked. It pained E deeply.

"A month," he murmured into the glass, unable to meet Vince's eyes. "It's been a goddamn month, Vince. She hasn't written, she hasn't called...what do you think of that?"

And for the first time in weeks, Vince looked slightly crestfallen and when he spoke, his voice was resigned, almost accusatory. "She's been busy," he answered defensively.

"Pretty fucking busy, then," E amended quietly to himself.

After a drawn-out and uncomfortable silence, Vince polished off his brandy. "You know," he speculated, "maybe she wants _me_ to make the first move." He leaned forward calculatingly. "I bet she wants me to write her a letter, or send her a present or something – you know, show her that I still think about her?"

"Vince," E began, but was promptly cut short as Vince stood and headed swiftly out the door. "Vince where are you going?" E shouted.

"To see Ari," he called with renewed enthusiasm.

Feeling dejected and extremely concerned for his best friend, E sat back in his chair and finally downed the glass of brandy.

Much to Ari Gold's chagrin, Lloyd thought nothing of Vince walking into the office, and so Ari was left to face his star client. "Ari. Where is she?"

"Who, Vinny?" he asked needlessly, hoping against hope that Vince was not talking about Peyton.

"Peyton? I mean I know she's in Chicago, but –"

"I couldn't tell you if I wanted to," Ari cut him off. "The production company put her up somewhere, I don't know where. Why?" This last word was full of suspicion.

Vince decided that honesty would be the best policy. "I wanted to send her a gift." When Ari said nothing, Vince finally voiced the concern that had lurked monstrously deep in his chest for weeks. "She...she didn't leave me Ari, did she?" For the first time since the ninth grade, his voice cracked.

_Keep Vince happy_, _keep Vince happy_, rang the voice in Ari's head. "She didn't leave you, Vince. I'm the one who chose the script! It was..." he mulled, pulling for excuses, "edgy and new...it was something she'd never done before. She'll be playing the bad guy."

In the face of all this information, Vince seemed unconvinced. "Chicago..." he muttered. "Ari, isn't that your hometown?"

"What's your point?"

Vince remained quiet for a while, his chin on a closed fist. When his eyes finally met Ari's, he said nothing, turned on his heel and marched out the doors. But Lloyd stopped him.

"Vince!" It took a few more calls but eventually he turned to face Lloyd, who beckoned him closer. "Vince, I apologize for eavesdropping, but –"

"What is it, Lloyd?" Vince asked, somewhere between annoyed and amused.

"I don't have Peyton's exact address, _but_," he practically jumped with zeal, "I do have the address where her fan mail is sent as well as the records from the limo company and the airline." He handed copies of all this information to Vince. "I'd hate to see her be the one that 'got away' Vince," he said in explanation to a truly confounded Vince.

"God, thanks so much Lloyd!" he hugged the assistant across the desk, overturning the phone in the process. "I've got a flight to arrange, but I'll see you around!"

Lloyd wiped away a nonexistent tear and murmured, "Oh, young love," doing his best not to look back and see if Ari had seen.

oOo

The bedroom of Peyton's condo was nothing short of a mess: bags of two varieties cluttered the floor, obscuring most of the fluffy white carpet. On the one hand, there were countless paper bags branded with designer names, but mingled with these was a mass of bulging black trash bags.

_Out with the old and in with the new_, Peyton thought. She had enlisted the help of the extremely friendly apartment staff to get the trash bags into a car so she could take them to the Salvation Army. The funny thing about Chicagoans was that they weren't resentful the way people in LA were. If she had asked for assistance back in LA, she knew she would've gotten more than a few rude hand gestures in response.

Upon receiving such a large donation, the lady at the Salvation Army appraised Peyton carefully. "Spring cleaning?" she joked, as it was the day before Thanksgiving.

"Kind of, actually," she replied. "I just moved here."

"Ah," the lady sighed understandingly. "New city, new life?" She didn't sound at all skeptical. But recognition was beginning to gleam inside her eyes.

"Yeah."

"Well we're happy to have your old life," she said with a tinkling laugh, patting the many bags.

When Peyton returned home, she forced herself to put away all her new clothes. Within the span of two hours, her room was clean once more. She sat on the floor before her fantastic view of the city, and she laughed. If someone had told her, a few months ago, that she would be buying an entirely new wardrobe in one go, or that she would move to Chicago to escape Vincent Chase...she would have laughed in their face.

As night fell, she did a few chores she'd left for the last minute. She rinsed the dishes, aligning them neatly in the dishwasher. She vacuumed. She even polished the mahogany dining table. From her kitchen, she could see the Sears Tower. She wondered vaguely, as she put away the Pledge and tossed the rag in the laundry bin, what she ought to do for Thanksgiving. She'd never liked turkey, and cranberry sauce was something she avoided like the plague. Of course, it wasn't the food she was most concerned about. But she had never spent a Thanksgiving alone before.

_I'll just go for pizza. Call mom_, she thought. She tried not to sound mournful to herself.

In the shower, she found it increasingly difficult not to think of Vince. Every time a water droplet would trail over her chest and down her stomach, she was reminded of Vince's gentle kisses; whenever the spray of the shower hit her back, she thought of how he used to hold her...

That night, Peyton fell asleep in silent tears.

oOo

The of Thanksgiving, Peyton had to work. But when she came home the next day, the usual box full of fan mail had arrived. Over the weeks, the box seemed to be getting fatter and fatter, and today, she was sure of it, there was even more mail than the last. Pulling out some leftover deep-dish pizza, she sat down at her table to begin going through the letters.

The first one was from a girl in Tennessee, not much younger than Peyton herself. It was obvious from what she'd written that she idolized Peyton as a sort of hero, which Peyton found both flattering and gut-wrenching. She was not worthy of this girl's adoration, in her own opinion. _Girls shouldn't look up to women who cheat_, she thought wistfully.

_Or to women who run away_, added another voice, her conscience perhaps.

Peyton rolled her eyes at herself and continued to open letters. A lot of them were praise for her work, some of them were picture requests...but every so often she ran into letters similar to that of the Tennessee girl. These letters made her heart clench.

For a moment, she thought back to when she'd been a little girl. She'd always known she would be a movie star and used to "practice" for interviews, answering questions in her mind's eye. She was beginning to wonder if there were some things a person should omit in the interest of their fanbase...Peyton shot an accusatory glare at the remaining slice of her Thanksgiving pizza, as though it had mortally offended her. She ate the rest of it quickly, knowing full well that rightfully it should have been stuffed back into the fridge for the next day.

The next letter was what could only be described as adorable. It was in a lavender envelope and had been mercilessly covered in cologne. The handwriting in which it was addressed to her was more of a scrawl, overtly masculine. She opened it, and felt a gradual wave of warm shock wash over her.

_Dear Peyton, _the letter began.

_ I know it's been a month. It feels like it's been longer than that actually. I miss you. I understand that you took this role and I hope I understand why. Ari says it'll be good for your career but E says it's for another reason...for the first time in my life, I hope he's wrong._

The shock was eating away at her, picking her apart one vital organ at a time. But her eyes continued to read and reread the familiar script.

_It has been weird without you. Almost everything is back to the way it was before you, but somehow that doesn't feel good anymore. I wonder why you didn't call? Or even this, snail mail...ha, guess it seems silly to you, huh? I chose the purple envelope cause I know it's your favorite color...or Lloyd did at least, ha. He helped me write to you, you know. _

Peyton laughed; she'd never wanted to punch somebody as much as hug them in her life, but at the moment both courses of action would suffice. She hoped she wouldn't see Lloyd any time soon, for fear of doing one or the other.

_By the time this gets to you, or by the time you read it, I'm sure Thanksgiving will be long gone. I hope you had a happy one. Mine was alright. I wanted to go back to New York but I didn't get a chance. Did you see your mom? I know you don't like turkey (Lloyd again) and I hear the pizza in Chicago is spectacular. You'll have to tell me cause I've never been. I'm hoping you'll write back because I miss you. If you really want to be nice to me you'll call._

Peyton read the last of the letter and began to cry again, holding the paper away from her so she wouldn't blotch it with tears. She couldn't bear to call and she didn't think writing to him was a good idea. The whole point of this move had been separation, whatever bullshit Ari had fed Vince about it being for the benefit of her career. After this, she was supposed to move on, she knew – get a house in LA maybe, and get the rest of her life under way. But after reading Vince's heartfelt letter, it was difficult picturing her life without him in it.

oOo

For the first time in his life, Vince found himself standing in the middle of a stationary store. It felt odd and nearly emasculating to be so surrounded by dainty and delicate cards and papers, but he felt as though he should up his game. He'd been writing nonstop to Peyton ever since that first letter and had been progressively trying to elaborate his charm. And, in the middle of the previous night, when the idea had come to him it had seemed truly ingenious...but now, standing alone and at quite a loss for what to do or where to start, Vince called the only person he could think of.

"Lloyd," he begged, not for the first time, "I need help."

"If Johnny Drama can't get his act together in public, it is not my problem, Vince." Lloyd sounded flustered and Vince swore he could hear Ari's dulcet tones in the background.

"No Lloyd, it's..." he sighed, frustrated and embarrassed. "I'm in a paper store," he confided in a whisper to his cell phone.

"What?" asked Lloyd.

Straightening up and deciding to take it like a man, Vince admitted, "I went to that stationary place, you know, down by Rodeo? Yeah, and I can't figure out what the hell I should be getting?" Out of nerves, Vince had become an uptalker.

"I am not coming down there, Vince. This is crossing the line. You are over the line." Ari gave a particularly choice swear into the air behind Lloyd and he hung up with a hurried "I have to go, sorry Vince."

Vince held out his phone at arms length and stared at it under furrowed brows. He sighed, pocketing the gadget. Another scan of the many shelves and displays confirmed his fear: he would just have to dig in. He spent the better part of an hour searching for the perfect balance of sweet and masculine, but it was difficult to gage one set of boundaries from another in this place. Amongst the ordinary – simple colors, eye-catching patterns and clichéd phrases – there was a vast array of the extraordinary. There were packs of scented paper (_too smelly_, thought Vince), envelopes that sang when opened (_too obnoxious_, thought Vince), and markers whose ink glittered brilliantly (_too Lloyd_, thought Vince). There were cards of every color and make imaginable: collapsible cards, pop-up cards, origami cards and recordable cards; get-well cards, anniversary cards and... "Happy a_ hundred-and-tenth birthday_?" cards. There were envelopes of designer origins, envelopes with inspirational prints and their were envelopes whose glue smelled a lot like chocolate.

But eventually, after most of Vince's hope had been contaminated by a flurry of tissue paper and glitter, he stumbled across the perfect gift. At the counter, there was a little display of pens. They were all different sizes and colors and designs. But what caught Vince's eye was a small, neat-looking pen. It was the kind that you twist in order to coax out the point, and its enamel casing was covered in a peacock feather design. The metal at each end of the barrel shined in earnest, and the thing seemed to call out to him.

_Buy me,_ it promised, _she will love me_.

The saleswoman behind the counter caught Vince admiring the pen and struck up conversation. "The end is made of platinum," she informed him. A stiff air of superiority fluttered around her pinched eyes and pointed nose.

"Yeah?" Vince was holding it up to the light, inspecting it. "How much does it go for?"

"About two hundred," she answered breezily. "But for you, Mr. Chase," she amended, taking notice of his raised brow line, "I'll make it a hundred and fifty."

Normally that was pocket money. _But a hundred and fifty dollars – for a pen?_ And then he thought of Peyton and her smile and her eyes and the way she smelled... "Okay." Reaching into his wallet, he pushed the crumpled bills across the transparent counter. The taught-faced woman rang it up and gift-wrapped it.

The pen sat innocuously in the passenger's seat of the car on the way home, but its presence taunted Vince, simultaneously making him grand promises. It dangled its incredulous price just in front of his nose at more than a few stoplights, but it also reminded him of who was unwittingly going to receive it.

Upon coming home, Vince seized the pen in its gratuitous wrappings and dashed up the stairs, giving Drama and Turtle only a fleeting, unintelligible greeting as he passed. Without blinking or turning away from the split screen of the TV, Turtle said, "There's somethin' wrong with him, Drama."

"No shit," Johnny replied, and watched helplessly as his Spartan went down with Turtle's grenade.

oOo

"God, Vince." Peyton was sitting with her knees pressed to her chest, having jack-knifed herself into one of the elevated chairs at the island in the kitchen. She had his latest letter (written on maroon stationary) in her hand, tears leaking out of her eyes. They pushed in their gentle, watery way, forcing themselves forth into a world she did not wish them to know. "This is so fucked up," she laughed, choking on a few more intrusive sobs.

She had tried. She had tried to ignore the letters. They had begun to pile up, after the first one, which she had initially jammed back inside the envelope. She had shoved it at the bottom of a drawer, hopefully never to be seen again. And at first this strategy had worked. But slowly, the letters began to take on character. Vince would send his letters in eclectically colored envelopes, all shades from a palette that seemed impeccably catered to her taste. Electric blue, lime green, daisy yellow, and sunset orange – among countless others – had become a papered lining of her sock drawer. And, interestingly enough, it had become painfully obvious that more than letters were being sent. Upon finally opening them, Peyton had discovered tokens of affection from Vince – some of them sappy and some of them quirky. Enclosed with one of the letters had been a dime bag (pilfered from Turtle, she suspected) filled with sand.

_From the beach where we first met_, read the clipping attached.

Also, as Peyton had embarked on reading every single letter by order of arrival date, Vince's words became more and more impassioned, increasingly and desperately affectionate. She was on the very latest of his letters when the final straw broke her down. The envelope has come taped to a package, which she was now prying open. The occasional scrape of cardboard against her pedicured nails sent nasty shivers up and down her spine. And there, wrapped in delicate tissue paper, was the most beautiful pen she had ever laid eyes on. She held it up in the light, examining it in awe. It glistened and blue-green peacock feathers popped out against the stark white of the background.

At the bottom of the wrappings, there was a little note. _For signing all those autographs_, it read, punctuated by a sloppy heart.

"Oh Vince," she wiped the tears off her face, wishing she could wipe away her guilty grin as well.

* * *

remember, reviews equal love...and a new chapter :)


	7. Chapter 7

Nothing. Not a single letter or call or anything back. Once more, Vince was feeling the pitfalls of suspicion and heartache. He was pacing the living room, slightly frantic. There had to be some explanation, some excuse...

"_Vince_!" Turtle's voice cut through the tension like a knife. "Give – it – up. Come back to earth, and get on with your life. No chick is worth this much."

"Don't say that," Vince pointed at Turtle, a manic expression crossing his pretty features.

"She's ignoring you, bro," Drama chimed in. "Has she answered any of your letters? Thanked you for your gifts?" When Vince would not answer, Johnny continued, "She has obviously gotten over you. Do yourself a favor and get over her."

Vince wanted to sit down, put his head in his hands and just think, but he couldn't. A constant state of energy compelled him to move his legs, and his limbs felt reluctant to relax. His heart – like his mind – was racing a million miles an hour. December was fast approaching, and so...

"So is her birthday." Vince had reached a sudden stand-still in the middle of the floor. The cogs were working meticulously behind his eyes, and careful thoughts were clicking into place, seeming to finish an immensely complicated mental puzzle.

"Vince, I don't think she wants something for her birthday!" Turtle yelled, hoping the loud noise might break his best friend out of the stubborn and clouded delusion.

"It's the ultimate test!" Vince threw his arms into the air. "Why didn't I see this before?" he wondered aloud, completely ignoring the peanut gallery. "It's a test to see if I'm committed."

"He'll be committed, alright," muttered Drama.

Turtle stood up and poured himself a drink, but Drama shifted in his seat, watching his brother resume his confined route of the living room. "So what if you're right Vince? What would you do?"

There was a ringing of shattered glass from the bar. Turtle was staring daggers at Drama. "Don't encourage him, dumbass!"

Drama ignored him. "Vince, what would you do to pass the test?"

Vince stopped his pacing. He looked out of the window. And he thought about it. "I'd have to get her a gift," he ticked off a finger, trailing off.

"So go to Tiffany's," Turtle suggested wryly, "get her a necklace and get this over with. You know, so we can return to normal life?"

Vince shook his head. "No, no...that would never work, Peyton's not that kind of girl."

"Not that kind of girl?" Turtle scoffed. "Every girl is a Tiffany's girl."

"No, I see your point, baby bro." Drama sat forward. "It can't be a bribe. This gift has got to mean something."

"Oh, here we go." Turtle returned to the bar and found another glass.

oOo

Peyton flopped lifelessly into a makeup chair. "Take this wig off of me, _please_," she begged Patricia (whom she strongly suspected used to be a Patrick).

Patricia laughed in her usual booming way and said, "First things first, sweetheart."

Peyton gazed at herself in the mirror: things had changed. Her eyes did not glimmer and, to her, they seemed a little drained of their color. _Maybe it's all the crying_, she thought bitterly. Her skin was pallid beneath her makeup, and her nails felt brittle. Most of all, she loathed the blonde wig that crowned her head, appearing to emaciate her face. Finally, Patricia removed it, setting it carefully on its faceless bust.

Riding home in a limo aimed a lot of attention at Peyton, but it managed to attract less attention than if she tried to take a bus or a cab. Remorseless and silent, she avoided the small glob of paparazzi that had bundled against the building, waiting to swarm her. She answered none of their questions, choosing instead not to acknowledge them at all, not caring that she would probably pay for her cold reception.

When she unlocked her apartment door, there was The Box, as she had come to call it. The Box sat tauntingly at the island, noiselessly calling to her from its perch. It was full to the brim with envelopes, their various points sticking out sinisterly in all different directions. Peyton did not want to face The Box. Instead, she made a beeline for the bathroom. She stripped, considering and reconsidering the shower, but it seemed about as appealing as the prospect of her box of fan mail. She washed her face though, over and over again, slapping on cold water from the marble sink. She scrubbed at every pore, trying hopelessly to reach a goal she didn't know or understand.

When she looked in the mirror, her face was red.

She put on a robe and meandered through the narrow, beige hall and into her bedroom. She sank into bed and flipped on the TV, foregoing the pain offered by her marked page in _Gatsby_. Peyton's eyes peered at a point just above the television, though, and she allowed herself to get lost in the city beyond. She felt lonely, friendless, isolated. The blaring noise of the commercial that had come on felt wildly inappropriate to her situation, so she quickly turned it off. She couldn't lie still, so she got out of bed and changed into her pajamas.

But her body still felt unnerved.

Peyton found herself steadily headed for the kitchen, her heart unwilling but her feet determined. Of their own accord, they walked her straight to the island and then put her in one of the chairs, where she was forced to confront The Box. She pulled out a letter at random, but this obviously wasn't what her body had in mind because involuntarily, she discarded it, unopened. She rifled through the letters, unable to stop her eyes from searching for that one envelope, the one with the familiar scrawl. She searched and she searched until she had reached the bottom of the box, having received more than a few papercuts. But Vince's letter wasn't there to be found.

_Maybe he's finally given up_, she thought, and though a large portion of her sighed with relief, a smaller but significantly louder part was extremely disappointed.

oOo

As they drove by Tiffany's, Vince was having second thoughts. His brief glimpse of the storefront displays played around inside his mind for what was left of the drive to LAX. The tiny part of his brain that was still logical begged him to reconsider the idea of giving Peyton a diamond tennis bracelet, but he manfully turned it down.

When they reached the airport and E parked the SUV, neither one of them exited the car. E took the key out of the ignition and didn't look at Vince. "Are you sure you're doing the right thing?"

"Do _you_ think I'm doing the right thing?" Vince countered, knowing what the answer was.

"Not really." E had always been honest...whether or not his honesty was always correct had yet to be confirmed.

"You were the one who told me she was good for me, E." If Vince recounted the entire situation to himself, it just seemed so absurd.

"Yeah, and maybe I was wrong," he said. "She left, Vince." This time, E looked Vince dead in the face. He was silently hoping that this would turn out to be a failure and that Vince would chicken out and see how stupid and extreme this decision was.

"Maybe you were wrong," Vince conceded, "but maybe you were right. Ma' always said that doing the right thing is never easy, and...going to find Peyton? Putting in all this effort? This hasn't been easy."

"I'm not saying anything against your mother, Vince," E had turned in his seat now, "but I think she'd want to see you go on a wild goose chase about as much as I do."

Suddenly, Vince opened his door. "I'll tell Peyton you said hi," he said by way of goodbye.

At the counter, the girl who procured Vince's last-minute ticket leaned heavily forward, displaying a blouse full of cleavage that went gravely unnoticed. "Hey Vince," she said evocatively, "there's plenty of time before your flight."

"Yeah. I thought I'd take some time to relax." And he turned his back on her before she could bat another eyelash. He sat down opposite a hefty-looking businessman, whose fat index finger was adorned with a class ring. He was reading an outdated copy of _USA Today_. The man stirred in his seat and fluttered the magazine, and noticed Vince almost immediately.

"I know you," he said in a slow Southern drawl. "You're that Vincent Chase, you played Aquaman." A slight but happy shine rose inside the businessman's beady eyes. "My daughter adores you. She's got a poster on every wall."

Despite his nerves, Vince smiled and leaned in, offering his hand. "It's always good to hear my work is appreciated."

"Where are you headed on a Red-Eye flight? If it's okay that I ask." The fact that this man only knew Vince by dint of a daughter's celebrity crush seemed to put a damper on Vince's own celebrity. It was refreshing.

"I'm going to Chicago. Scouting out a possible job opportunity." The lie came easily but he felt a little bad about it.

"I was just there myself, for similar purposes," the man smiled. His lips were thin and his face was aging but his sincerity was no less endearing.

Vince laughed, and then an idea struck him. "You don't happen to know any good florists in Chicago, do you?"

oOo

The plane landed in O'Hare just shy of a vicious blizzard, and on his way through the terminal, Vince became increasingly aware of the fact that he owned nothing suitable to a Chicago winter. The sky was darker than usual, any hope of moonlight buffeted away by the voluminous grey clouds that billowed overhead.

Vince took a cab from the airport to the Hilton on North Michigan Avenue, and checked in to the immeasurable surprise of the night clerk. Tired and wilted, he allowed himself to be ushered up to a suite, silently. Without so much as brushing his luggage, he collapsed face-down, fully dressed onto his bed and fell asleep.

Meanwhile, on the street below, Peyton was pressing through a howling, freezing gust of wind, hardly able to see. She drew her coat ever more tightly to her body and forced through the frigid might of the storm. She turned the last corner and to her great relief, the CVS was still open. With a last burst of effort, she extracted the door from its metal frame and entered the store. It was wonderfully warm, and even more wonderfully, empty. She stepped forward and lowered her scarf, revealing her face without a care in the world. That was the thing about Celebrity: it turned you into a creature of the night. Peyton had always imagined that fame would come with its share of difficulties, but this hadn't been one of them.

It was nice, being allowed to slowly take her time through each aisle, just browsing. She had come here for something specific, but it seemed wasteful not to take this quiet opportunity. Peyton ended up purchasing more than she'd banked on: some new mascara she'd been meaning to try, a couple of bags of candy and four liters of diet Pepsi, to name a few things. Of course, she had come here for a copy of _Cosmo_, and as she approached the magazine rack, something caught her eye.

Beneath a large spot of the latest political drug scandal, there was a minute inset of a surly-looking Vince, sitting (apparently) alone at a cafe. The emboldened text beneath it read, _Vincent Chase: Suffering from Depression? _

"Those assholes," Peyton swore. She had half a mind to pick up the trash rag, just to investigate, when the zitty college kid at the counter weighed in on her opinion.

"Yeah, half those political scandals are made up," he said knowingly, puffing out his chest a bit. The glass behind him rattled as the wind howled outside. Of course, his eyes had strayed at once to the larger and more glorified headline...he might not even have noticed Vince.

Peyton nodded mindlessly, placing her purchases on the counter to be rung up. The kid didn't say anything more, but he seemed to be searching her hopefully. She wondered if he knew who she was, and if so, did he think he stood chance? This guy could've looked like Brad Pitt and it wouldn't have mattered. Peyton was _not_ in the mood.

Stepping out into the cold December air, she pulled her scarf back up over her face and jammed her hat more tightly onto her head. Halfway back to the condo, however, the wind came to an abrupt halt and the snow began to float peacefully to the ground. As quickly as it had come, the storm was over.

oOo

In the morning, the cityscape was a veritable wonderland. Snow-covered and picturesque, Chicago seemed to Vince the perfect set for a movie and it seemed implausible that he'd never been here before. The first thing he did was go out and buy a coat – a heavy one. He'd had to wait for a while, as the streets and sidewalks were heaped with snowdrifts and by the time he'd left the store (wearing his new acquisition), it was twelve o' clock in the afternoon.

He decided to walk back to the Hilton, affording himself some time to form a strategy. He did not know her precise location and he was unsure of the venue of her film set. He wished he knew the context of the movie – that would have told him just about all he needed to know. As Vince crossed a bridge over the frozen Chicago river, he felt a buzzing in his pants pocket. Sure enough, Ari was calling him. It was almost certain that E had given him away. But Vince chose not to answer, shoving Ari and the phone from his mind.

The idea came to him as he passed a traffic jam in the snow-clogged artery of North Michigan Ave. If there was even the slightest chance of Peyton's film being outside, then there would be a slight traffic jam wherever a road might be closed. It wasn't exactly a rock-solid theory, but it was something to start with. Vince stopped quickly for a cup of coffee and then doubled back on his route, bent on finding the movie set if he could.

Sitting in this traffic jam, was Peyton herself, gazing stoically out the window of a cab. The snowstorm had impeded the usual barrage of paparazzi – something she knew would never have deterred the vultures of Los Angeles. She breathed onto the window, drawing stars. Then she fogged it up again and this time made a heart. But through that cloudy heart...

"_No_," she whispered. She unfogged the glass completely and pressed her cheek up to it, trying to see past the line of traffic. Deciding that she'd imagined him, she turned her stare away from Vincent Chase.

oOo

Richard, the director, snatched the coffee cup from Peyton's hand and sniffed it. "Is this hot chocolate?" he asked. Under normal circumstances, he was a delightful human being, but as a filmmaker, he was shrewd and sometimes demanding. Okay, a lot of the time.

Peyton nodded, much to Patricia's irritation, and steeled herself for the lecture she knew was coming. _Why couldn't I have brought water_? she asked herself.

"You really shouldn't be drinking this," he said, and launched into a tirade the size of Katrina. When he had finally finished, Patricia made a clucking noise similar to that of a mother hen.

"Don't listen to him, sugar plum," she cooed, "there's a lot better tricks to makin' you look sick than actually making you sick."

"I'm not sick," Peyton insisted, gazing at her reflection as the hateful wig went on.

"Mmhmm," Patricia hummed knowingly.

Just a block from the building where they were filming, Vince fell onto a cold bench. His plan had not worked out so well as he had hoped, and he was beginning to feel as though this whole trip was a waste. _You've only been here for fifteen hours_, a voice reminded him. A buzzing in his pocket notified him to what must have been Ari's fiftieth phone call. As he tried to ignore it, he was struck with sudden inspiration. He waited for the phone to stop its incessant buzzing, and then he called _Lloyd_.

"Ari Gold's office, Lloyd speaking," he answered robotically.

"Lloyd, it's Vince."

Lloyd nearly crawled through the phone. "_VINCE_, do you have _any_ idea what Ari's been putting me through just to find you? Where the _hell_ are you!" He sounded so frantic and so stressed that Vince couldn't stop the pangs of guilt that were banging around in his stomach.

"Do not tell Ari where I am, Lloyd," Vince told him. "But I think you already know."

"I should tell him, Vince...but I won't." Vince could hear sympathy in Lloyd's voice. "Have you found her yet?"

"No," Vince answered somberly. "That's why I called you. Did you say you had the limo records?"

"I did," Lloyd said smoothly, pulling them from his desk drawer.

"Where was she taken from the airport?" the urgency almost burned his throat.

There was the soft, secretive sound of papers being filed through, and Vince's heart was tiptoeing along the edge of a very dangerous plummet. Lloyd muttered to himself a little as he searched, but finally he came to what he was looking for.

"Ah _ha_!" he exclaimed, sending Vince's heart jumping next to that vicarious edge. "It says here she was taken to 1147 Lake Shore Drive. That's –"

"Even I know where that is. Thanks so, so much Lloyd."

"You're welcome, now get off the phone before I change my mind," he threatened, Ari losing his mind (and his voice) behind him.

Vince walked silently in the direction from which he had come. People occasionally would stop to look at him, but it wasn't the pandemonium of LA, where people could be certain it was him. He was out of place here, which meant more time to walk by before the initial wave of recognition hit passerby.

It wasn't a long stretch from where he'd been to The Drive, and so before long he found himself making long strides up and down the snowy sidewalk, examining the building numbers. At long, long last, he spotted it. And 1147 turned out to be pretty intimidating. A lofty high rise, it extended endlessly upward into the grey sky. The entire front appeared to be made of nothing but steel and glass, less like an apartment complex and more like a business establishment. Vince looked straight ahead at the entrance, where a friendly-looking doorman waved at him, smiling.

Vince waved back, but he couldn't make himself go in. Not today.

oOo

_Fwump_. Peyton fell into bed, exhausted. Richard had insisted on several hours' worth of chase and reaction scenes, and being in character for such a consistent time period often left her feeling depressed and waspish...not to mention starving. She struggled soundlessly through the dark, pushing off her jeans and untangling herself from her tee shirt. It took an abnormal amount of time to extricate herself from her bra, as her fingers were painful and defiant. Ultimately, Peyton curled up beneath the chic down comforter and was lulled by the sounds of traffic and her own sense of entitlement.

The clock in the living room struck midnight, and Peyton groaned. How loud or how soft it was, she couldn't know. The next day, December third – a Friday – would be her twentieth birthday. Graciously, Richard had offered to only shoot the scenes they didn't need her in, to give her a break, but she had maintained that she come into work. Peyton was what her mother had always called a doer. She went out and was busy, or she found ways to stay busy at home. She was happiest and most relaxed when she had something to do, provided she could do it on her own terms.

And besides, it was exponentially easier not to think about Vince when she was pretending to be Valicity Hall, the anorexic, homewrecking heroin junkie.

Peyton turned onto her side and stared at the wall, lit in odd places and cast with strange shadows from the many city lights outside. A rare patch of moonlight had sprung up as well, as a clearing had appeared in the tremendous amount of storm clouds.

In exactly twenty-four hours' time, Peyton would be twenty years old. She would be twenty years old, wealthy, but still without another letter from Vince.

She would have given up sizable portions of her bank account just for one of his letters.

oOo

Ari sat in silence, which E was going to take as a bad sign. Sure enough, when he spoke, it was in a low, cascading growl. "When is Vince coming back, Eric?" Ari didn't look at E, in the event he might throttle him.

"I don't know," E said. His voice was steady but inside he felt like there was an earthquake taking place.

"Why did you let him go to Chicago, to chase down a girl?" Ari asked, louder this time.

"I don't know," E repeated. "But would it have mattered if I tried to stop him? This is Vince we're talking about here."

"_I know who we're talking about_, _Eric_." Ari was on his feet now, and E had to fight not to cringe into the back of the couch. "So," he said at last, pinching the bridge of his nose, "What're we gonna' do?"

E didn't even need time to think about this. "We're gonna' have to wait, Ari," he murmured.

"_Wait_?"

"Yeah. We're going to have to wait for Vince to find Peyton and either get back together with her or fall on his face. Either way, he will come home."

"Well," Ari said, reaching for his phone, "there's no harm in speeding up the process." Vince's phone rang, and rang, and rang, and –

"Yes, Ari?"

"Vinnie!" Ari put on a very good show indeed. "Long time, no see," he teased, hoping to stay on Vince's good side, as the last time they had spoken, he'd seemed suspicions.

"Um, yeah...it might have something to do with the fact that you shipped my girlfriend out to a whole other state without warning me first." Vince's voice was like a jagged piece of glass, creating more tension than reassurance.

"I thought you two weren't a couple," Ari said, unable to help himself. E dropped his face into his hands and sighed. This was not going to work.

"I changed my mind." All was quiet for a moment, and then, "What do you want, Ari?"

"I want to help you, Vince."

The background noise lulled, suggesting that Vince had stopped moving. "Help me?"

"Yeah, I was going to tell you that she's in building 1147 on Lake Shore Drive, that's –"

Vince forced out a barking laugh. "I know where she is Ari, I figured that out already. Anything else before I hang up?"

Ari's brain was working furiously, trying to judge the best course of action. Eventually, he resigned himself to the inevitable. "Her apartment is just below the penthouse floor. There's only two suites – hers is the one on the right." Ari sighed, defeated. He had hoped to hide her and had failed miserably.

"Thanks Ari." There was a muffled click, and Vince was gone.

After a while, E looked up. "Ari," he said, "you did good."

"Yeah? Save it, Michael Collins."

oOo

The following day seemed at odds with itself: somehow, December third managed to elongate into a protracted and agonizing collection of hours, and yet simultaneously combust into shortened, tiny pieces. Just as she had planned, Peyton woke up and went to the set, though Richard had scheduled simple and relatively painless shots that day. He even kept mum while she ate thirds of the gargantuan birthday cake the crew had given her. They'd even arranged for a female stripper, whom Peyton had enjoyed, despite herself.

Unfortunately, her cab ride home, when posed in comparison to her time on set, thew into sharp relief the strange and isolated way of life she had become accustomed to. She rested her head on the window, not bothering to fog up the glass.

"For someone who's just turned twenty?" The cabby said, surprising her, "you sure look glum." His ebony reflection observed her from the rearview mirror.

"Excuse me?" she almost whispered.

"You're Peyton Leigh, from _"Easier Than Love"_ right?" He watched as she nodded. "My wife loved that movie."

"Oh," Peyton replied, still stunned. "Tell her I said thank you."

"Oh, I can't wait to tell her I drove you home. She'll be so thrilled..." and then, Peyton stopped listening. She couldn't help it. _Easier Than Love_...it had been about Carlie and Dane who fell in love, but who treated one another as casual dates. The boy was a commitmephobe and the girl was scared to love – a fine setup for a blockbuster romance-comedy, but disturbing to think that it was taking place in real life.

By the time the cab pulled up in front of 1147 Lake Shore Drive, Peyton had wiped the thought from her mind.

"You have a lovely birthday, Miss Leigh," said the cabby.

"Thank you," was all she managed before he drove away. She stepped into the lobby and the sound of her high heeled boots clacking away at the marble floor made her feel safe, secure. She entered the elevator and it was empty, so she hummed to herself the whole way up.

Standing outside of what must have been Peyton's door, Vince leaned against a polished oak table, a bouquet of gardenias pressed into his hand. _I called her my girlfriend_, he thought, a_nd it felt good_. His ears perked as he heard a familiar voice singing a familiar tune.

"_Happy birthday, dear meeee_ –" Peyton gasped and her purse clattered noisily to the wooden floor. Vince rushed forward to help her but she waved him away, choking, "I got it." When she had finally recovered her things, she straightened up and faced him, red-faced but beautiful as ever. "Vince," she gulped,"what are you doing here?"

"Um, well," he acted sheepish, hoping it would buy him brownie points, "I'm here to wish you a happy birthday, and to give you these," he presented her with his flower arrangement. "And, um, I was hoping we could talk."

Peyton seemed frozen to the floor where she stood, but after another stiff moment or two, she walked forward and unlocked the door, allowing him to come inside. She accepted his flowers and put them in a vase in the kitchen to be removed to her bedroom later...but he didn't have to know that.

"I thought we could share some cake and conversation," he continued, "and then I can go back to my hotel, and uh, we can go from there." Reality was slapping him hard in the face. Something ambiguous, something about the state of her apartment spoke to him, telling him that she really had left him back in Los Angeles. But at the same time, something about it told him how sad she was without him, that she had, in fact, been missing him.

"You're staying in a hotel?" she asked blithely, sitting across from him. "How long have you been here?"

"A few days, at the Hilton."

Peyton studied Vince. She cocked her head and blinked a few times, just watching him. "You can stay here if you want," she offered unexpectedly, "but you should really sleep on the couch."

Vince was taken aback. "Well, it would be easier." He watched her pull some cake out of the fridge and lay out pieces on two plates, then pour some champagne. "So," he said, "tell me about this movie."

* * *

the usual rule applies: reviews will bring another chapter. thank you so very much, I hope you've enjoyed this one


	8. Chapter 8

So, maybe things hadn't gone exactly according to Vince's expectations. When he had imagined showing up at Peyton's apartment, he'd envisioned a happier reaction; in his mind's eye, he'd turned over and over again the image of her leaping onto him, kissing him, throwing her arms around him. He'd considered the possibility that she might wait until they were inside, only to rush at him with pent up joy at his sudden appearance and passion from his long absence. And he hadn't excluded the chance that it might come to a slow-burn return to romance, where her surprise would inevitably lead to some kind of sexual confrontation.

But in all honesty, none of this seemed to be happening.

It was a grey day, more so than any other day previous. The sky was thick with the anticipation of snow, as ample and frightening clouds had drifted in from the lake. Vince's things were strewn haphazardly about Peyton's living room, but she didn't care – she hardly even used it. In fact, there was a gaping space of empty shelf where the television should have been.

"Oh, I put it in my bedroom," Peyton had told him when he'd pointed to the open maw in the living room. "Help yourself to it, as long as I'm not there."

That was the other thing: Peyton had effectively (and somewhat silently) banned Vince from her bedroom. Of course, it was perfectly acceptable for him to go in by himself, but he refused to do this when she was home, so he was restricted to the hours she spent at the set...which, admittedly, were long and often.

_I remember when our sex used to be long and often_, he thought bitterly, sitting up. His head spun a little and he sank back into the leather couch. He glared out of the expanse of window, down into the slushy streets, grateful that no one could see in.

The silence felt unnatural, like somebody had put the world on mute. It pressed in on him, reminding him that he was alone. "She must've left early," he said aloud, just to interrupt the intimidating silence. He wandered down to the bathroom and took a leisurely, warm shower. He sat beneath one of the two spigots, and imagined. He imagined Peyton, naked and wet and alone, as she had been. He imagined her washing, shaving, touching...thinking of him, missing him, wanting him. He then imagined her pressed against the sleek, steamed glass, with himself behind her...and then the fantasy popped as easily as a bubble of soap.

_Fat chance_, said a voice in his head. _Not after that cold reception_.

It was true that the way he'd pictured their reunion had been more than hopeful, but it didn't mean they couldn't be salvaged as a couple, he told himself.

_That would be true_, the voice agreed, _if you had ever been a couple in the first place_.

This time, Vince's mind rewound his life back to that day in the pool, and instead of telling her it was alright, that they weren't a couple, that he wasn't her boyfriend...he insisted upon it. And instead of the more realistic reaction of her refusing him, she miraculously embraced him and confessed an irrevocable attraction to him, both inside and out. For a moment or two inside her shower, he was happy.

From the bathroom, Vince migrated lethargically into the kitchen. He dug around in the fridge and found himself some more birthday cake. He ate a couple of pieces, chewing, savoring, devouring. And it was here, in her refrigerator, that he stumbled across one of the rare subtleties that told him she had, after all, been thinking of him.

Soy milk. Between the diet Pepsi and the Skim, there was a carton of soy milk – the same kind Vince kept at home. She wasn't lactose intolerant. Had she enjoyed the stuff in LA and simply remembered the brand? Or had she hoped...had she hoped he might show up? Had he been right after all, about her ignorance being a kind of test? Well now he was the one hoping, because the idea was so ludicrous when spoken aloud that he had already decided not to pose it to her.

Cake finished and stomach full, Vince went into Peyton's bedroom. He always paused before opening her closed door, feeling as though he ought not to be there. She had made him feel so guilty, so bad for some unfathomable reason, that he bought into it. He pushed the door forward with both hands and stepped gingerly into the room. It was wide, bright. The bed was simple, and yet there was something undeniably ornate about it too...it was impossible to put a finger on it. In the last couple of days, Vince had sat in a chair to watch TV. But today, he decided, he was going to watch from her bed. The view would be better this way, he convinced himself, and he wouldn't have to crane his neck.

He hovered momentarily next to her rumpled bed – it had been made, but sloppily. It put a smile on his face. Carefully, he climbed in, lowering himself onto the fluffy comforter. It swelled up around him, engulfing him in its softness. Distracted, he sort of forgot about the television. Rather, he turned and inhaled...her pillows smelled _amazing_. They reeked of whatever conditioner she was partial to, something minty and sinfully sweet...vanilla perhaps? Vince lowered his examination to the sheets themselves, and he realized for what felt like the first time just how great Peyton smelled. The heady smell of almonds lingered in the creases and folds of her sheets, accompanied by something softer, sweeter...

And then the sound of his towel sliding to the floor alerted him to the fact that he was naked, in her bed. She probably wouldn't like that. _But what Peyton doesn't know, can't hurt her_, he thought harmlessly. Besides, _this_ was where he wanted to be.

Under the dismal light in the sky, and surrounded by the irresolute smell of girl, Vince fell asleep.

oOo

In a week, they'd hardly spoken a word to one another. _Well_, Peyton admitted to herself, _that's not true_. After all, Vince had spoken quite a few words to her...she just hadn't given him many words back. And it wasn't because she was mad at him for showing up. She wasn't ungrateful either – she understood the kind of trouble it must have caused him, the price he must have paid – money notwithstanding. She could even wrap her head around how strange such behavior was for him, and she understood its significance.

But that was what scared her.

Vince was not being Vince. Vince was being what every teenage girl in America dreamed of him being. Which could only mean one thing, in Peyton's opinion: it meant that he was falling in love with her. This was the very thing she had both dreaded and hoped for. Peyton was a romantic, deep underneath all the layers of tough independence. She enjoyed the idea of being in love with someone. She'd _been_ in love with someone before. But that had been a long time ago...in a time when things had been simple, and her worst worry was usually what Mom had packed in her lunch box.

Peyton sighed, sliding into the back of a limo. She recalled the time she had ridden in the front, always wanting to see and be seen. Now, she was relieved to hide behind the dark mask of tinted glass. She had taken to wearing more makeup as well; a psychological effort towards relative anonymity. It had actually reached a point where she felt naked without her makeup, more than her clothes – more vulnerable, perhaps, as if the cameras might steal a part of her soul if her eyes weren't heavily guarded by dark eyeshadow and thick, garish eyeliner. On anyone else, it might have looked trashy, but she managed not to clash beyond repair.

And this only reminded her of Vince.

"Take that black shit off your face," he'd told her the other night. It was one of those sparse moments that he was abrasive with her. She hadn't come home until well after midnight, and he'd clearly sat up, waiting for her. Maybe that was why she hadn't held it against him.

"I like this black shit," she'd replied, her voice a monotonous rumble. "You think it makes me look ugly? Old?" She had maintained a certain degree of nonchalance, ensuring Vince's immediate reaction.

"No." If she remembered correctly, he had all but vaulted the back of the couch, ready to make amends. "I just think you're prettier without it." He had emphasized the '_er'_ on 'prettier.'

"Well," she'd laughed cruelly, calculatingly, "it's not about what you think, is it?"

The worst part of it was that he hadn't looked insulted or upset or any of it...only hurt. And that ripped her to pieces more than she would ever care to admit.

oOo

At first, Vince panicked. He woke up, staring at Peyton's bedroom ceiling, acutely aware of his nakedness. A sharp intake of breath burned his windpipe as various worries began to fill his head: _Did she come home? How long did I sleep? Has she seen me here? If she has, is she angry? _Vince sat up and felt about the bed around him. He dangled his feet over the end of the mattress and listened carefully. There was no sound coming from the kitchen or the bathroom. He was safe.

Sitting up, he saw the clock. He had slept for a good five hours, but not nearly enough time for Peyton to have come home and discover him so indisposed. He stood up and found his towel, wrapping it about his waist once more. Upon turning around, however, he saw something bright orange sticking out of her top drawer. Mechanically, he slid it out of the crack where it peeked out at the world. It was an envelope – one of his envelopes. Vince stared at the paper for a long while, his brows furrowed and his brain clicking away. And then his eyes moved slowly to the drawer itself. He knew he shouldn't...he _really_ knew he shouldn't. She might kill him if she found out.

_I'm only going to put it away_, he thought innocently, peeling open the drawer. But sure enough, upon seeing the remainder of all his letters and gifts stashed away amongst her many mismatched socks, he could not help himself.

He rifled through them, examining them. The first one was blotched and tear-stained. That made his heart beat a little extra fast. He had not meant to make her cry, and yet it was guiltily satisfying to know she had shed tears over him. The one that had come with the sand was torn around the edges...he couldn't quite put that together. The one that came with the pen was still in its envelope, in almost perfect condition. The pen, he noticed, was not to be found amongst the many gifts. And then, there was the last letter he'd sent her before he had come to Chicago. It was crumpled and wrinkled and badly stained. It was creased in several intersecting places, as though she had tried to flatten it after it had been folded for a long period of time. It was painfully obvious that this was the one she had read the most.

_She missed me_, thought Vince with a horrible, gleeful turn of his stomach. _She really fucking missed me_.

The door of the apartment opened and shut. "Vince?" Peyton's voice rang eerily through the stifled space.

"Shit." Vince pushed everything back into the drawer, praying that she wouldn't notice, and he turned on the television and threw himself onto her bed. And then he remembered that he wasn't really wearing anything... "I'm in here!" he called, internally ridiculing himself.

Peyton knocked softly on her own bedroom door. "Vince?" she cooed.

"Yeah," he confirmed. "You can come in, you know. It's your room."

"I know," she said, without coming in. "I wanted to let you know," she sounded weepy, "that I am going out for dinner tonight. I..." and here, she hesitated, "I thought you might like to join me." She sounded so stiff, that he wondered if she was trying to convince herself of it.

"Um, yeah. Just...I'll be out in a moment."

"Take your time, I'm not leaving yet," she murmured. It was odd, because he had gotten so used to the girl who felt at ease ordering him around and speaking as though to a crowd of hundreds, rather than an audience of one.

Once her footfalls died away, Vince stood up. He made to leave, but as he passed her bureau, he opened the top drawer, and made sure that the point of the orange envelope was sticking out.

oOo

Dinner turned out to be at a pizzeria only a few blocks from 1147. And the pizza turned out to be as big as a cheesecake, the complete polar opposite of New York pizza. "Don't worry," Peyton said as the waiter lowered the massive platter onto their table, "it won't eat you."

It struck Vince after a moment that she was making a joke, and a weak smile appeared on his face.

"So," Vince began, serving himself a slice of the intimidating pie, "you seem to know your way around the area."

Peyton was gorgeous tonight: bathed in the warm light of the lamp overhead, her skin looked slightly golden and her eyes shined. As she opened her mouth to answer him, she licked her red lips slowly, tantalizingly. "I came here once, as a child." She took a big bite of pizza, not bothering with silverware the way Vince had.

"Oh?" This was the first real skeleton of a conversation, whereas anything that had happened in the last few days was strictly a specter. "Please, tell me about it."

"Well," and for what felt like the first time, there was laughter in her voice, "when I was eight years old, my mother took me to see my Aunt Rachael, who lived in Chicago."

"Lived?" Vince interrupted, regretting it instantly. Peyton's pretty face fell, and he apologized, gesturing for her to continue.

"Anyway. We had saved up for this trip for a whole year – I'd never met Rachael. And we had decided to leave on Thanksgiving Day." She smiled wistfully, reminiscing. "Everyone thought it was..." she searched for a polite word, "...impertinent, I guess, to miss the family dinner, but I hate turkey and half our family are a bunch of nuts anyway." Peyton took another large bite of pizza, savoring it before swallowing. "So Thanksgiving morning, Mom and I piled into her old Dodge Dart, and we headed for Illinois. Five minutes into the trip and I asked Mom how we were gonna' get there, and she says 'Honey, I thought it would be fun to go through Canada!' Well I had just studied Canada in my geography class and I looked at her and said 'Mom we're going to need birth certificates.' Imagine this, at eight years old."

Vince loved the way Peyton gesticulated, the way her hands seemed to convey exactly the right emotions and visages. He loved how happy she looked while telling a story. And above all else, he loved that she was sharing a piece of her life with him.

"We argued back and forth about it for a few minutes," she went on, oblivious to Vince's admiration, "but in the end, I surrendered with a bit of a grudge."

"Nothing's really changed, has it?" he smirked. She threw a bit of pepperoni at him and missed.

"Sure enough, a few hours later, we were at the border in Buffalo and the guy at the gate asks us for birth certificates." She shook her head, grinning at her own pride, "and God, was I smug. I remember sitting in the passenger's seat, my arms crossed and giving my mother the most livid _I told you so_ look. I think it may have been one of our finest moments together." She sighed.

"And what happened then?" Vince inquired past a mouth full of sauce and soy cheese.

Peyton hiccuped and took a long sip of her rootbeer. "In the end, they gave us each a yellow slip to be presented to the guards at the border when we left Canada. I might be wrong, but I think he actually alerted the entire border that there were two semi-authorized Americans in the country." She grinned at Vince's laugh. "So we got really, _really_ lost."

"Of course," Vince nodded, as if this was some rite of passage.

"And my mother..._God_," she sighed, exasperated even by the memory, "my mother is like a _man_ when it comes to asking for directions. She hates doing it." Another bite, another moment of chewing. "It must have been an hour before she finally caved and we stopped at this little convenience store. And let me ask you something, Vince: if you were gonna' run into a language barrier in Canada, what would be your first guess?"

Without thinking, Vince answered, "French."

"Right. Well, we walk into the store and they guy behind the counter doesn't speak a word of English. You know what he spoke?"

"French?" Vince repeated.

"No. Korean." They both laughed. "And so my poor mother spent fifteen minutes trying to make out this guy's directions – and failing horrifically. Meanwhile, I'm just thinking about those border patrol guys and how they're probably either laughing their asses off, knowing we are lost, _or_ gathering some kind of Canadian SWAT task force to go find the crazy Americans.

"So we get back in the car, and even though the Korean man drew a truly magnificent map," Vince snorted into his beer at the good-natured slur, "it was completely useless, as Mom hadn't understood a word he'd said."

And just then, the waiter appeared to check on them. "Oh the food is excellent," Vince said, though he decidedly preferred New York crust. When he turned back to Peyton, she looked concerned. "What?"

"Am I boring you?" she asked.

"What? No! Please, I want to hear the rest of this." Vince smiled and hoped she didn't think he was pretending. He really was pleased at being let in a little bit, after all this time.

"Okay. Well, after another two hours of driving around hopelessly," she flung her hand out flamboyantly, "we stopped at a Mr. Sub – it's kind of like Subway, only Canadian. And I cannot believe it was still open! Anyway, we were _just_ in the middle of asking the lady behind the counter for directions, when this really tall, really ghetto-looking black guy walks in with his girlfriend. And she was like, a video vixen."

To Vince, it sounded like some endless, trippy joke – very appropriate for Peyton, though.

"Before the lady could answer, they started to give us the clearest, most incredible directions. And get this: at the end of his sentence, the ghetto guy said '_eh._'"

And they could contain it no longer. They both spluttered and giggled and hiccuped until there was hardly any air left to breathe. After finally finding his breath, Vince said, "There has to be more...how did you get out?"

Peyton inhaled deeply and smiled. "Well we followed their directions and everything was going alright. We stopped at a gas station and Mom complained and complained about how small everything was in Canada – now that I'm older, I still laugh about that," she said without laughing. "And eventually we wound up at the border in Indiana, I think, and I remember practically jumping up and down in my seat when I could see a 'miles per hour' sign up ahead."

Vince chuckled, trying to picture an eight-year-old Peyton, tired and road-happy, ecstatic over a road sign. "So then you got to your aunt's?"

"Yeah...but that's kind of a long story too. Maybe another time." And it was clear in the way she sipped her soda that she was heading off any more questions about Aunt Rachael. But Vince considered the story he had just been treated with tantamount to a gold rush.

When the waiter came around again, Peyton inquired about a box and dessert to go.

"It's not like we'll be able to eat that five blocks from now," Vince said, rubbing his stomach contentedly.

"No, but it will make for a nice breakfast," she said. "I am so happy the movie wraps tomorrow night. I've really missed this..."

Though, what _this_ was, exactly, Vince never found out because the waiter arrived with the box and the dessert menu. He watched Peyton order something chocolatey and sinful, and refused when asked if he wanted anything.

"I don't think I'll be eating for..." he pretended to think about it, "another week or so,"

And as Peyton signed the check, Vince swore he heard her mutter "_You have no idea_."

oOo

Vince was sitting at the marble kitchen island when Peyton woke up the next morning. He wondered for a daunting moment if maybe everything that had taken place the night before had meant nothing, because without a word, she went into the fridge.

Vince cleared his throat tentatively. "Um, good morning." He set his spoon into his cereal bowl and watched her.

When she looked up, Peyton seemed to be coming out of a trance. "Morning, Vince." The Styrofoam tab on the dessert box made an awful squelching noise that echoed in the kitchen. She served herself some double chocolate mousse cake (or whatever the hell it was) and sat down beside him. She took a bite, and then, of all things, she kissed Vince wetly on the cheek. A bit of whipped cream was left in his stubble, wiped away as he rubbed the spot where her lips has touched him, shocked. He wanted to say something about it, anything, but he couldn't. What did this mean? What terms were they on? Was it back to square one or were they picking up where they'd left off? _What the fuck was going on_?

Peyton stared at the slice of cake longingly, twiddling the fork between her thumb and forefinger, looking torn. Vince watched out of the corner of his eye, not saying a word. Following some doubtlessly sad observations, he was coming to an even sadder conclusion... In the end, Peyton took her plate around and put the untouched cake back into its box. She folded in the tab and carried it back mournfully to the refrigerator, shutting the door with a sigh to end all sighs. Then she looked at Vince, clearly warning him not to ask.

She stood beside Vince and his neglected cereal bowl and rested her head on his shoulder. He gulped. "Wanna' watch a movie with me?" she asked. She sounded exhausted.

"In your room?" Vince asked absurdly, as that was where the TV was.

A weak giggle escaped her pale lips. "Yes Vince, in my bedroom." She tugged at his arm in its fleece sleeve, and he followed her down the hall, abandoning his bowl completely. Entering the room together felt like some sort of privilege to him, like maybe he'd just run a marathon and earned a gold medal.

Reclining horizontally across her unmade bed, Peyton unfurled herself like some patient, delicate flower. She reached across the way and found the remote, turning on the television and searching for a movie. That was the thing about living in a nice apartment – the cable was excellent.

Vince stood diffidently in the doorway, trying to gage his next move. Peyton looked up at him, beguiling him with one of her old, belligerent smiles. "Are you going to join me or what?" she asked. Wordlessly, he mimicked her in parallel – not so close that they were touching, but not so far away that it was out of the question.

Sound came out of the speakers and pictures moved across the screen, but neither of them were really paying attention. Peyton hit a button on a sleek, ambiguous-looking remote and suddenly, it was about ten degrees hotter. Whether she had meant to or not, she had flushed Vince out of his hoodie. The view outside was obscured by a flurry of white fluff and whirling wind. As the world shook beyond the glass and drywall, the infinitesimal world within was impeccably still.

Relinquishing only a soft groan, Vince let one of his arms fall in front of him, filling the space between them; his arm propped on the cushy bedspread, he let a hand fall tenderly onto her shoulder. In an instant, Peyton's body became rigid, her breathing stiff and synchronized. He could not tell what kind of line he was crossing, or how deep a blunder might dig, but it was now or never. Trying not to alarm her, Vince slid his open palm from her shoulder, down her side until it came to rest in the very lowest point of her ribcage. He scoped out her midriff, gently feeling where ribs stood out against skin, which felt paper-thin and fragile.

Vince nuzzled his nose in Peyton's hair. "You've lost weight," he murmured. Then he asked the question that had been burning his insides for quite some time. "Why did you put the cake back in the fridge? Why did you look so guilty, after eating a few slices of pizza?"

Absolute silence. The television had been muted and its glow now seemed ghostly. Peyton made no effort to relocate Vince, but she still felt tense beneath his hand. "I had to thin out for the movie," she finally croaked, "my part was that of an anorexic."

"But you didn't –?"

"_No_, Vince!" Seeing that he still wasn't convinced, she went on. "I ate enough, I wasn't starving myself."

"There are all kinds of tricks they could've used, Peyton, you didn't have to torture yourself."

"I was fine. And tonight is the last night. Then I will eat that cake."

Vince waited, trying to figure out what direction to plunge in. "I still don't like it, even if it was for a movie."

Unexpectedly, she turned sharply to face him, and while it made him happy to see the old smolder back in her eyes, it scared him more than he would ever take credit for. "_You_ put on weight for _Medellín_. That's not exactly healthy either."

"Okay," Vince huffed, not at all pleased with the turn this morning was taking, "first of all, don't even touch _Medellín _in this conversation." Indeed, without knowing it, she'd prodded a sore spot. "Second? It wasn't the same as starving myself. That is really, really risky, Peyton. And what I did hadn't effected me beyond my appearance."

"And this has?" she snapped.

Vince nodded, his lips pursed. "Yeah."

Peyton looked down, to the side, anywhere away from him. "It's this role," she finally spat. Tears were welling in her eyes, and Vince mentally scolded himself. "It isn't just not eating, Vince. It's being this person...I mean, I could do _Sickly_, that was okay because _she_ was okay, once you got past all the bullshit, but..." she sniffed, and Vince coaxed her forward into his arms. This, he could understand. "God, she's just a _monster_, Vince!" Peyton shook, wracked with silent tears. Vince had a feeling this was something she had needed to do for a long, long time.

"It's going to be fine," he said, staring out at the murky sky. "Just a few more hours."

Peyton sniffed again. "I know," she acknowledged happily, despite herself. "A few more hours and it's over. And then in a few days, we can go home."

Something hit Vince over the head like a cast-iron frying pan. "Did you say _we_?"

"Yeah." Her eyes widened in sudden horror. "Oh God," she choked, "you don't want me to come back with you, do you?"

"Are you _crazy_?" He laughed. "Why would I come all the way out here and go to the trouble of finding you just to tell you it's over?"

"It?" Her eyes were still wide, but now with confusion.

"Peyton," Vince sighed, smiling. "We had sex, exclusively together. We practically lived in together. We ate together, laughed together and slept together – figuratively and literally," he affixed. "What does that sound like to you?"

Peyton's line of vision became oddly fixated on the bed beneath her, and a grim smile forced its way across her face. "I don't want to say it," she delayed, but there was a certain thrill in her voice.

Vince lowered himself to eye level with her and grinned. "_Say it_," he sang, closing several inches of space between them. "What am I?" he teased. It seemed to be the only thing that was effective with her right now, which was fine as he wasn't much for serious conversation either.

"Incessant," she said, closing a few more inches herself.

"Aside from that," he persisted.

With an eye-roll worthy of her age and a groan like an old door hinge, she grumbled, "You're my _boyfriend_."

Looking very pleased with himself, Vince said, "Doesn't sound so bad, does it?"

"It sounds kind of high school," she pushed on obstinately.

An eyebrow raised, he reminded her, "It wasn't that long ago that you _were_ in high school."

"Four years," she said, drawing herself up indignantly.

Quickly calculating the math, Vince asked, "Wait, you dropped out?"

"Mhmm," she said, but whatever she was going to say next was cut short by a loud knocking at her door. She froze, not even an inch from Vince's face, startled. Then, "Oh _that's right_, Tony said he was coming by!" She face-palmed herself, standing and pulling her hair into a messy bun.

"Tony?" Vince asked, feeling that this was not the time for anyone named Tony to come by.

"Tony Cooper-Owens, the male lead in _Stranger_," she shorthanded the title, as she always did.

"Ah," he said, not at all comforted by this news. "The guy you're trying to trick out of his marriage?"

Peyton shot him a truly acidic glare. "They guy my character is trying to trick out of his marriage. Vince," her expression turned abruptly beseeching and Vince was reminded why she was an actress, "stay in here, won't you? We'll only be an hour or so."

Principally, he understood why she might want him to stay out of the way, but the masculine, more involved part of him felt frankly insulted and cheated. But he heaved a sigh and agreed, peeling off his last layer for her benefit as she left him to go answer the door.

oOo

For the first time in a very, very _long_ time, Ari Gold – Super Agent – felt overwhelmed. Scripts were flowing in for Vince, and he was not available to pass them along to Eric to read them. Of course, this wasn't really the root of Ari's discomfort, but it made a good excuse when said aloud, usually to the reception of much laughter. And at the moment, Ari's discomfort – as it were – was manifesting itself on a very unhappy Mrs. Ari. She pushed him off to the side and turned over with a spectacular huff.

"Baby," Ari whined, "what's wrong _now_?"

That had been the wrong thing to say. "Ari, you're not even thinking about me. I can tell – I can tell when your mind is elsewhere." Her face was pretty, beneath the tight lips and hardened stare. "Is this about Vince?" she demanded.

Caught unawares, Ari made it halfway through an 'uhuh' before changing his mind and shaking his head.

"Well I think it's _sweet_ that he went after that girl." Clearly, Mrs. Ari was admiring simply to get a good dig in at her husband. "It's about time he settled down anyway."

"About time he...what do you mean by that, baby?" In the back of his mind, Ari felt obliged to contemplate the possibility of his wife being suspicious of Peyton as well...

Mrs. Ari arched a perfectly groomed eyebrow and snorted. "He's thirty-three, Ari."

"You'd never know it," Ari defended.

"That's not the point."

Ari wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close. "I only want Vince to come back asap so that he can get a move-on with finding a new job. I'm just worried that he's getting distracted from his career for this girl."

Mrs. Ari dug a little deeper beneath the sheets, away from her husband and murmured, "And that's a bad thing?"

oOo

_Tick...tock...tick...tock_. Vince looked up and groaned: it had barely been five minutes since he'd last checked the kitchen clock. The candles were down to their wicks and he was forced to turn on the overhead. He was beginning to wonder if he should just put away the cake and celebratory Pinot Noir. _Tick...tock...tick...tock_. The storm outside was picking up...was Peyton stuck at the set? Or worse, had there been an accident? Was she okay? Vince couldn't think about it. He crossed the floor and went into the living room, finding his phone. Halfway through dialing Peyton's number, he stopped. He would have heard sirens if there had been an accident – it wasn't like she was across town. Or was she? _Tick...tock...tick...tock._ She hadn't specified where the last shoot was going to take place. And come to think of it, she hadn't even mentioned what time she could be expected home. _Tick...tock...tick...tock_. That clock was going to drive Vince insane. He was slowly going out of his mind. Any minute now, he was going to lose it completely – yes, he was going to have a mental breakdown from the sheer anticipation, the anxiety, the impatience, the –

_Tick...tock...tick...tock...tick...tock...tick...BANG_.

The door burst open and Peyton crawled inside, cold and wet and altogether unhappy. Her makeup was drooling and her hair was more than windswept. Disheveled and exhausted, she walked right past Vince, holding up a hand at him in silence, a sign to keep back until she was ready to receive him. Of course, never one to follow directions, Vince trailed behind her to the bathroom where she promptly shut the door in his face. Undeterred, he asked, "How was it?"

Nothing but the sound of the tap coming on.

"I waited for you," he chattered needlessly.

The splash of water, the muffled sound of scrubbing.

"I went out and bought us some wine."

The tap squeaked off. The door opened and Peyton seemed quite surprised to find herself face-to-face with Vince. "Kitchen. Wine. _Now_," she ordered. Happy to hear her voice, Vince obeyed. To a civilian, Peyton's mood might be completely undermining and threatening, but to a fellow actor, it was well within the realm of reason. Vince had certainly survived such ordeals, and was fully aware how it felt to come home at the end of a laborious last shoot. He popped open the Pinot and poured a generous amount into Peyton's glass, as well as presenting her with a large slice of cake. She took the wine and gulped it down before he could even say 'cheers' but eyed the cake maliciously.

Vince forewent a glass entirely and simply drank from the bottle.

Amused, Peyton let out a giggle, smiling for the first time all night. She stood up and grabbed the hand that wasn't around the bottle, and led him down the singular step and onto the couch, flicking off the light as she went. Now, sitting in the dark with the slowly guttering candles behind them, the evening was taking on a different tone. Peyton leaned against him and thought the word _boyfriend_ several times over, trying to acclimate herself to the ostensibly juvenile term. "More, please," she held out her glass.

Carelessly, Vince refilled her glass. And then, the most minuscule tract of thought broke off and floated into the kitchen. _The cake_, he thought. It seemed oddly symbolic to him somehow, that she eat it. He got up and retrieved the slice he'd cut and brought it to her, fork placed neatly to the side.

Peyton stared at him, incredulous. "Are you serious right now?"

"Don't make me force-feed you," he teased.

"You don't have to tell me twice." She took the plate and she stared at it. Then, slowly, she picked up the fork, she lowered it into the many layers of chocolate and mousse and cream, and she lifted the bite skyward until it was level with her mouth. And belatedly, at long, long last, she ate the cake. A grin spread warmly across her features as she luxuriated in the array of complimenting tastes and textures. It was good to enjoy food again.

"Not so bad, is it?" Suddenly, Vince was right in her ear.

"I told you I wasn't sick," she asserted, "just dedicated."

"Same thing," he shrugged. About five bites later, the empty cake plate lay forgotten on the floor, with only the crumbs for company. Peyton was lying on Vince's shoulder, sipping her wine and sighing contentedly every now and again. Before long, the bottle was empty, and while they were certainly a far cry from drunk, tipsy would have described them more accurately.

Inspired by the alcohol, Vince made his move: he took Peyton's chin between his fingers and he kissed her, deeply, the way he'd wanted to for what felt like an age. He put as much heat into that kiss as he could, pushing words he could not say aloud into her mouth. At first they were playful and passionate, but as the minutes stretched on, the kisses became increasingly urgent. Vince pulled her onto him across the couch, tasting as much of her as he could, and then...

"_Vince_." She looked as if she was trying to be reprimanding, but it was fruitless as a smile was tugging at her lips.

"What?" he asked, acting all kinds of innocent.

"This," she said, running a hand over his steadily growing hard-on. Vince shrugged and smiled unapologetically. Peyton continued to rub him through the fabric of his pants, kissing him uninhibitedly. It was the first time she'd had any real male contact since she'd left Hollywood. Tony didn't count, whatever Vince thought – and she knew exactly what he thought about it. She hadn't been deaf to the intermittent creak of her bedroom door during her rehearsal that day. She'd practically felt his stare drilling into her back.

Coming up for air, Vince found her neck with his lips, gradually settling in the soft space where neck met shoulders. The satisfaction was greater than her little groans of pleasure; it was greater than the way she squirmed above him at only a kiss; it was greater than every gasp of hot breath that ghosted over his head. This was an infinitely deeper satisfaction: this reached way down inside Vince and gripped him tightly in the chest. This was a taste of something he'd rarely known – something most of his friends took for granted, except maybe for E. And for a blistering second, Vince thought he could understand how E had made love his drug of choice.

"Vince, off," she tugged at his shirt, "this has to come _off_."

"As you wish." He pulled off the fabric, very aware that sweat had pooled at the small of his back as he did so. "It's not very fair though," he ruminated, painfully feigning a remorseless calm.

"What's – not – fair?" Peyton asked between kisses. She ravaged what she could of him like a starved dog, and her desperation wasn't lost on him. Between her deprivation and the effect of the wine, Vince wondered if he was out line.

"You're still fully dressed." He decided she was still capable of her own decisions.

An unrelentingly dangerous burn had accumulated behind her eyes. She sat up, straddling his legs and seemed to melt right out of her tee. Vince reached around her and pulled her forward until he could place slow and easy kisses across her cleavage. She smelled so, _so_ good – like sweet wine and spice, or vanilla. Like a million winter evenings spent beside a warm fire; like smoke in the night or starlight. Vince made to unclasp her bra, but Peyton stopped him.

"I..." she faltered. She was flushed, and beautiful, and...

Vince took a good, hard look at Peyton. If he overlooked his need, if he could manage to get enough blood up in his brain, he started to notice things. Little things, like the way her ribs were a little too prominent; the way her hair seemed only slightly thinner; the way the veins in her arms now seemed bruised.

"So I don't think I can do this, Vince," she sniffed. God, when had she started crying? He felt bad. Surprisingly bad.

"It's..." he searched, "it's okay." What had happened to him? He was saying the words that his friends would never have said. Turtle, Drama – even E – and Ari...and at the mere thought of Ari's name, a flare of anger rose up inside him. It was Ari's fault that Peyton was here, now, waifish and reluctant.

If it _wasn't_ okay for anyone, it was Ari.

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thank you for reading :) thanks even more if you let me know how I'm doing.


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